I just couldnt help myself, this pic was taken by Richard Murray on my scope (GRAS G15) with relatively short exposures, and including processing with wavelets in Registax!!.
Luminance-20 min (5 min subs), Red-10 min (3.3 min subs)bin2x2, Blue-10 min (3.3 min subs)bin2x2
Nice comparison Mr B, thanks, and yes theres a bit more noise in Ricks Pic, but think of what he wouldve done with hrs of exposure time. We live in exciting times Astrophotography wise, its an eye opener.
As you point out Fred there is a bit of noise but we can't recall seeing so much detail in any other image of 104 ever before.
Agree with you an amazing image
With the utmost respect to Mr Murry this image looks very strange to me, the colour is pretty all over the place, although I believe you didn't have all the filters installed at the time, am I right? There are strong processing artifacts too and lots of what appears to be...just noise? I can't tell what is real detail and what is simply a result of overprocessing..? The inner ring looks like it is a "real" feature but the outer hallow is just a uniform lipstick on glass like smear with hard edges that bleed into speckly noise. Overall the image is severely clipped and looks rather unnatural and unconvincing to me. sorry.
It does hint at what your equipment "could" do but I am certain your superb scope setup is capable of a much better result on M104 than this...?
Sure Daniels M104 has a much brighter (but very natural looking) central halo region that hides the core (inner ring is faintly visible though) but I can't really match up any outer disc or front edge details from Richards image to that visible in Daniels, this leads me to think that the detail in Richards is in fact somewhat processing induced?
Mike
hope you're ok with that assessment
Last edited by strongmanmike; 07-02-2008 at 11:41 PM.
Sure Daniels M104 has a much brighter (but very natural looking) central halo region that hides the core (inner ring is faintly visible though) but I can't really match up any outer disc or front edge details from Richards image to that visible in Daniels, this leads me to think that the detail in Richards is in fact somewhat processing induced?
Might be a noob when it comes to astro photo but I know a few things about processing. Got to agree with mike on this one too. I used registax on planets and moon AVI frames in the past and this program can really screw things up and make you see things that are not there (or that you want to see) if you tweak the settings too much in the 5 channels.
I inverted some details on your pic to illustrate. The border line between the glow and the dark shows a lot of noise and I think that's what you might have picked up in the center of the picture that makes you think it looks like extra details. The same noise happens around the bright star.
The result looks real good mind you but I'm not sure it is actually there?
Im fine with the assessment Mike, youve got some good points there .
The green channel is synthetic, so I guess that would skew colour balance.
I must say, I didnt analyse the image much, other than noticing the noise due to small exposure times , I just found it asthetically striking generally and quite like it.
Its not my image, so Ill just say I like it on face value.
As a relatively inexperienced imager, I make it a point to blink compare my imaging and processing efforts with others before finalising and posting. I discovered early on that artifacts can easily be introduced by stretching, noise reduction and smoothing low S/N data (if you're not careful). It's easy to inadvertantly process out real detail and process in stuff that's not there. A blink comparison between Richard's shot and others clearly reveals both kinds of artifacts I'm afraid.
Steven and Mike
Sorry, can't agree with you at all. As a presentation of M104 and revealing features I've not seen before, I think its brilliant. The inner disk which I hadn't even suspected before is clear and obvious. Just as an exercise that may surprise you, take your long exposure shot and run it through registax. Guess what? - the same features are there.
I personally think its a brilliant shot and may push the boundaries but hey we are amateurs and guess what the professionals are now stacking their shots from a whole series to get the sharpest image.
Sound familiar?
Just my opinion, no malice intended
Allan
Steven and Mike
Sorry, can't agree with you at all. As a presentation of M104 and revealing features I've not seen before, I think its brilliant. The inner disk which I hadn't even suspected before is clear and obvious. Just as an exercise that may surprise you, take your long exposure shot and run it through registax. Guess what? - the same features are there.
I personally think its a brilliant shot and may push the boundaries but hey we are amateurs and guess what the professionals are now stacking their shots from a whole series to get the sharpest image.
Sound familiar?
Just my opinion, no malice intended
Allan
Hello Allan,
I have experimented with wavelet processing (using AIPWin rather than Registax) and have never been satisfied with the results.
Im fine with the assessment Mike, youve got some good points there .
The green channel is synthetic, so I guess that would skew colour balance.
I must say, I didnt analyse the image much, other than noticing the noise due to small exposure times , I just found it asthetically striking generally and quite like it.
Its not my image, so Ill just say I like it on face value.
Fair enough and it is an image showing the inner ring so that "is" pretty cool regardless of its asthetics
Quote:
Originally Posted by allan gould
Steven and Mike
Sorry, can't agree with you at all. As a presentation of M104 and revealing features I've not seen before, I think its brilliant. The inner disk which I hadn't even suspected before is clear and obvious. Just as an exercise that may surprise you, take your long exposure shot and run it through registax. Guess what? - the same features are there.
I personally think its a brilliant shot and may push the boundaries but hey we are amateurs and guess what the professionals are now stacking their shots from a whole series to get the sharpest image.
Sound familiar?
Just my opinion, no malice intended
Allan
Yes I agree, seeing inner ring that clearly is pretty cool but as for the other details ...? an image is an image and it doesn't have to be perfect but I just find this image has lost a lot of what it could have had as a result of the hard processing but hey it isn't a crime just making some observations. The lots of short exposures technique is one to develope I recon and has some real poential on brighter deepsky objects.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dannat
I really like it, whether it has faults or not - sometimes faults can look great - at this photo shows