NGC 253 First Light

[E_ri_k]

This is my first image in nearly 12 months, and first light image for the TOA-150. Despite towards the last subs, I realised I screwed up the spacing for the field flattener, I'm please with the result. Some of the star shapes are a little funny, but after a re-measure, I have a new adapter coming for the flattener.

http://www.astrobin.com/full/219339/0/?real=&mod=

Feedback always appreciated +ve or -ve, I feel a bit rusty :P Do you guys think it's a bit too blue? I like it, would have been good to add some HA data, but I only thought of it after I finished it.

Thanks for looking.
Erik

[RickS]

Welcome back, Erik! Detail is good. I'd like to see a bit more colour in the stars. The galaxy isn't too blue for my taste but would look better with some more colour variation.

Cheers,
Rick.

[Placidus]

Very fine Erik! Lovely high contrast from that TOA-150. Nice processing of the dust lanes. Lots of tiny galaxies in the background.

My own preference would be to set the dark point closer to the foothill of the histogram, and then rebalance so that the image was on average less blue.

The star colours seem to have burned out to white. Perhaps you've clipped the top end of the histogram.

Apart from those tiny suggestions, it's a very nice 253 indeed.

[Paul Haese]

Aside from the things already mentioned maybe mask out the stars in the galaxy when you are sharpening. Good detail and image scale.

[codemonkey]

Looks much better in the full view than in the thumbnail!

There's some posterisation in the background and artefacts around the stars that I believe to be caused by jpeg compression; I'd probably suggest scaling it down and upping the quality for presentation purposes. Obviously the underlying data is not affected by that though.

Other than that and what others have already said I'd probably up the black point a bit; the background is very grey. (edit: oops, looks like Mike already beat me to that too).

All criticism aside, this is a very nice image; good work!

[E_ri_k]

Thanks Rick, thats good to hear, I like the blue also. I agree, some nice Ha would liven it up.

Thanks for the tip Paul. Still not very confident with the star mask tool, but I'll do some learning:P

Thanks :) I liked the background, maybe its my display? It is a little light perhaps....I was afraid of clipping too much, but I'll try it out :)



Thank you, I never noticed the burned out stars until now:thumbsup: I have to work on my processing of the stars, something I think I overlook a lot of the time.

[gregbradley]

Congrats Erik. Its been quite a road eh?

Overall a very pleasing Sculptor with some lovely detail typical of the fabulous TOA150.

I think it is quite a bit too blue as the Sculptor has some blue in it but its more of a yellow/brownish dusty spiral galaxy.

As mentioned protecting the stars during the processing needs to be done. But the detail is terrific.

Greg.

[barx1963]

What I love about this image is the two very distinct coloured areas enable one to really see the bar and spiral structure.

Very nice and thanks for sharing the larger version Erik

Malcolm

[strongmanmike]

Nice work Erik, excellent details, welcome back! :thumbsup:

Sure, there does appear to be a bit of a blue colour cast over the field but funny, while it would probably be good to see a little more colour variation, (especially the HII regions) across the galaxy, if you look at many past photographic shots of NGC 253, it did often look pretty blue (http://ftp.aao.gov.au/images/captions/aat023.html) :)

Mike

[E_ri_k]

Thanks Greg, yeah it was a long break, but good to get back into it. Thanks for the feedback, I'll have a play with the stars.



Thank Malcom :)


Thanks Mike, and nice image. I do like the HII regions in your image, adds a bit of variation which mine lacks.

Thanks everyone for the feedback and tips :)

Erik

[Shiraz]

minor technical points have been raised by others, but it is still a very impressive image Erik. Colour seems a little bluer than some, but convincing. detail is excellent.

[alpal]

Nice work Erik,
You've got more detail than I got.
How much integration time was there?

cheers
Allan

[E_ri_k]

Thanks Allan, yeah I was very happy with the amount of detail, much better than my last image. I forgot to mention the integration time!

7 hours in total
30 x 10 minutes luminous
4 x 10 minutes in RGB each.

Erik

[strongmanmike]

T'wasn't my image Erik, that was Monsignor Malins handywork from the 80's (?) :)

Mike

[alpal]

Thanks Erik,
just had another look -
you've got countless faint galaxys popping through everywhere.
You've gone really deep in only 7 hours.

cheers
Allan