My NGC 300 - completely reprocessed by Diego Colonnello

[Andy01]

Like the title says - Diego has very kindly offered to have a go at properly reprocessing my 30+ hrs of data. :thanx: :)

LRGB gathered on NGC 300 over 5+ nights from Nhill, Snake Valley, Kilmore & Bin 2x2 Ha from home in suburban Melbourne.

Diego used Astropixel Processor (https://www.astropixelprocessor.com/) - an app I'm impressed by that pre-processes, stacks, removes LP and balances colour - requiring only a few final touches in PS afterwards - and it's both mac & PC friendly :D

I reckon he's done a far better job than I could - so all credit is due to his considerable processing skills :thumbsup:

The result is HERE (https://www.astrobin.com/full/367008/I/)

Seems that my collimation is mostly ok, but I'll need to get auto-focussing between filters etc running, as the image is looking a tad soft.

Has anyone used Astroimager (http://cloudmakers.eu/astroimager/)software for this on a mac? Looks promising for focus, capture, guiding & planetarium too :)

Anyway, enjoy the image - there's lots of feint, (slightly fuzzy) fuzzies in the field as well.

Thanks Diego :thanx:

[Atmos]

I've always been a bit jealous of Diego's Photoshop ability to get smooth results out of short integrations :)

For some reason there is a lot of noise in the brighter centre of the galaxy, more than in the lower SNR regions. Not sure why.

Hope you don't mind but I've also realigned the colour channels (just shifted the RGB histograms) as it had a heavy blue bias. Also darkened the background as that's my personal preference, not everyones though.

[diegocolonnello]

It was a pleasure to work with Andy's data, in this case i used very little NR in photoshop..... but the color balance is another thing, my monitor is not the best option to use, and depending on where i post it, it looks different..... Astrobin, Flickr, Facebook, Dso browser, all different..... i sort of gave up on it and only let it be... i only managed to see on the screen the same i see on my printer....

[alpal]

Hi Andy,
that's a great picture.
I got awful results with only 3 hours of data from a light polluted suburb in Melbourne
but using a CLS-CCD anti-light pollution filter.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/24719437@N03/22116587358/in/photostream

It shows everyone how difficult this target is.
I had to take 15 minute subs & bin 2x2 to see anything on my sub frames.

You have so much beautiful color.
Well done.


cheers
Allan

[Peter Ward]

What a great result. :thumbsup:

Sorry..couldn't help myself...looked a little blue, so I did a Malin and tinkered with it :)...less blue now. ;)

[LewisM]

Andy, can you Dropbox the data? I - and probably others - would love to process it.

[Andy01]

Thanks Colin, Peter & Allan for your time, tweaking and input :)

My bad - when I first looked at Diego's processed result it was on my laptop & I though it was too yellow - so I made it bluer. :shrug:

Revised version using my corrected monitor HERE (https://www.astrobin.com/full/367008/J/) :D

Lewis, getting the files to Diego killed all of my dropbox space ::sadeyes: - had to clear everything to get 7.5GB of data to him - re-posting will have to wait until I upgrade my plan. ;)

[Atmos]

Now that looks much better!

[Peter Ward]

Yep, cooking with gas now, mucho better

So many technical aspects are nailed in this image. Spot on tracking, focus, collimation, image registration, highlight and shadow details, colour balance
;), and noise suppression....

It would be difficult to obtain better result without seriously larger artillery and pristine skies, and even then I suspect it would be a challenge.

Well done guys :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

[willik]

That looks great Andy and Diego for help you have worked hard on that it looks
much better brought more colour out and detail The trials of Astrophotography. :thumbsup:
Martin