Sunflower Galaxy M63 - RGB and Ha

[windjammer]

Hi

Here is M63, Sunflower Galaxy, NGC 5055 - mono RGBs and Ha.  The exposures were taken over 18mths ago, but this is the first time in many attempts to process the data into something that doesn't look like a cartoon.  It was such a struggle that I am almost astonished that features in the image are real and match up with high quality images from much larger instruments!

It still isn't quite right - there are still very faint features left in the murk that I haven't pulled out and which got lost somewhere in the pipeline.  Colour of the main galaxy is not quite right and a bit dull, and the core is burnt.  And the stars are a bit off, defringing and debloating have left artifacts - who knew, processing the star layer is just as tricky as the rest of it...But its OK for now!

On the plus side, I was able to convert Harry's Astroshed PixInsight pixelmaths recipe for combining Ha with RGB into Affinity Photo's 'Apply Image' function.  I think it works quite well.

Simon

Details:
Sunflower Galaxy, Messier 63, NGC 5055, M51 Group of galaxies.  RGB and Ha composite.

Photograph taken in Astronomik RGB broadband filters, Ha narrowband filter. Total exposures15.8 hrs.

R 2x2 bin - 8x300s = 0.7hrs, 23-24 March 2021
R 2x2 bin- 11x300s (East side) + 14x300s (West side) = 2.1hrs, 30-31 March 2021
G 2x2 bin - 6x600s (East side) = 1hr, 1 June 2021
G 2x2 bin - 16x600s (East side) = 2.7hrs, 2 June 2021
B 2x2 bin - 14x600s (East side) = 2.3hrs, 6 June 2021
B 2x2 bin - 20x300s (East side) = 1 hr, 12-13 June 2021
B 2x2 bin - 18x600s (East side) = 3hrs, 13-14 June 2021
Ha 2x2 bin - 12x900s (East side) = 3 hrs, 9 June 2021

Rig:
Imaging scope: SW Startravel 150mm F5, 2.5x Celetron Luminos 2inch imaging barlow, Atik 460EX mono

Guide scope: SW Evostar 90mm F10, with guiding XY stage, ZWO 120MM camera

Guiding: 2 stage PHD: high frequency guide scope (mount tracking) and low frequency OAG image train guiding (guidescope flex)

Mount: Home made German Equatorial pillow block mount, permanently rooftop mounted.  Spring loaded DEC axis gearing.

Other gadgets: ST4 based anti vibration shutter, ST4 based PEC.

Processing:
PixInsight: Lights, Darks, Flats, Biases, Align Calibration, StarNet2 star removal/star layer
GradXpert: Gradient removal
Topaz DeNoise AI: Noise removal
Affinity Photo: 32 bit image processing (curves, high pass masking)