M101

[blinky]

Here's just under 7 hrs on M101 in 7 and 12min subs. I have a feeling this is still a wip as i need to fix the stars and the galaxy is still a bit too noisy.

A slightly bigger version can be found here http://blinkysastroblog.wordpress.com/2011/03/05/m101-the-pinwheel-galax

[MikeD]

A great result on a tuff target, maybe up the green a touch?

Mike.

[MartinB]

Excellent work, you've picked up the faint outer arms very nicely. Most of the noise seems to be chrominence noise. What are the colour and exposure details, there may be ways and means of taming that noise a little. Take away the bit of noise and you have an absolutely stunning image.

Is this image cropped because the reduction looks less than 6.3? It looks more like F10

[blinky]

Its a crop Martin, not sure what you mean about the colour/exposure details?

[blinky]

Is this any better? I did a tiny amount of gauss blur on the spiral arms and upped the green a tiny amount?

Any criticism greatly appreciated.

[blinky]

Or this?

[MikeD]

Too much noise redution on the last one IMO.

Mike

[MartinB]

Your first rendition was ok for me colourwise. Sorry I was getting muddled with the colour comment, it was a OSC so ignore my comments. The main thing causing the noise is the crop. The crop you have done gives a similar FOV to F10 and gives the same sort of noise problems as if you had imaged at F10 but not cropped.

There are some ways of boosting saturation which don't seem to introduce as much noise as using the PS saturation tool.

It's nitpicking though, it's a very fine image.

[MartinB]

Here's my take on your image Craig. Ist off I decided not to crop. To work on the colour I used a couple of iterations of shadows and highlights just working on the highlights and colour. I used a duplicate layer and colour as the blend mode. Then a bit of colour tweaking, boosting the red and yellow in the highlights and the blue in the mid tones. Then went into LAB mode and did a contrast boost to the a and b channels.

Did some quick cleaning up of the background and some selective sharpening in the core using high pass filter. I reduced the noise using neat image with some layer masking to protect the bright parts of the galaxy.

The background needs more work!

[MartinB]

Hi Craig, had a go at your image without the crop but struggled to clean it it. I've been quite gentle with the processing but the background needs a whole fresh start.

[blinky]

Thankd Martin, as I am using a QHY to image I dont take darks -I wonder if this image would have benefited from these?

[blinky]

I should also add, the biggest problem I am having when imaging through the SCT is vigentting. I take flats but even then when I stretch them they dont fit perfectly and I get vignetting, thats why I usually crop.

[Keiran]

That is amazing I love the colours. I am really going to have a crack at this one, but i dont expect results like this. 7 hours... Simply stunning.

I had a little play hope you dont mind...

I just thought that there was abit more that could be done with the colours... not sure if this is actually how it is supposed to look lol.

I really love the faint outter arms, you have really done a cracking job on it

[blinky]

I know what you mean about the colours - I feel it needs more blue.

[Keiran]

You have done an amazing job on it though, briliant detail... Are going to keep adding to it or are you going to find another subject now?

[blinky]

I am still messing about with it! I would like to get a presentable image without having to crop the image in this close - vignetting is the problem when imaging with an SCT

[Keiran]

I suppose we need some good weather as well lol... Well, im looking forward to see what you put together

[MartinB]

I'll try PixInsight on it, that might help the background

[blinky]

I would be really interested in that Martin - I keep swithering over Pixinsight, mainly for the DBE tool!

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Brilliant image, excellent work!

[jgs001]

Looks very good to me Craig, much better than my effort on this target last year.

[gary1968]

Looks good to me Craig...... plenty detail and the colour is amazing.

gaz

[TakMan]

Very pretty with plenty of structure and colour...

Too many choices/variants to decide upon!!! ;-)

Clear skies

Damian