Adding Ha to galaxies

[Mike73]

So last night I got around 8 hours of LRGB data on M31 and tonight I'm doing the same on M33.

I know both galaxies have Ha regions and basically I'm sat here wondering if I should add some Ha just to finish the images off?

I really dont know how much I should add or in the case of M33 if it will even be worth it as its already fairly small due my my 500mm fl?

Also any tips (or links) on how to process Ha LRGB with Pixinsight would be appreciated.

🙂

[wimvb]

Imo, if a galaxy has Ha regions, then adding them to an image will increase the quality of that image. The only thing you need to take care of is that Ha doesn't skew the colour balance towards the red. As a starting point, try the NBRGB script in PI to blend the Ha with red. You can also use PixelMath to add Ha to red. Kayron Mercieca (LightVortexAstronomy) has a tutorial on the how to blend. This is a more complex method (I think that the NBRGB script is based on it):

https://pixinsight.com/tutorials/narrowband/index.html

[powerlord]

You can also easily do this with startools nb accents. Or of course, something like affinity photo. 👍