Centaurus A

[codemonkey]

Just a hair over 10hrs on this old favourite. Seeing was average to poor and my issues with elongation persist... I did, however, do a decent job with motion blur deconvolution to reduce the elongation in post processing, so I'll call that a win.

Full res / more capture details available on astrobin (https://www.astrobin.com/407695).

[ChrisV]

Lovely detail Lee.

[Atmos]

Very nice Lee, good detail and colour considering the seeing. I can tell you that Mike will be seeing worms ;) Deconvolution can be a difficult mistress.

[Ryderscope]

Nice one Lee. The core is well resolved and you've hidden any star elongation issues well. You've managed to capture some faint fingers of dust extending out from the core as well.

[strongmanmike]

:lol:...was just looking at Lee's image Col and then read your comment...aaand you are spot on! Am I that easy to predict? :lol: :thumbsup:

Sorry Lee, forgive my humour at the expense of your decon, yes I can see the decon :rolleyes:.. but other than that, it is a decent looking image with great colour in particular :thumbsup:

Mike

[codemonkey]

Thanks Chris :-)



Thanks Rod :D





:lol: No offence taken, Mike. I've become complacent with my decon, it seems. I usually push it pretty hard, to the point where it's looking a bit wormy to me, but I typically get away with it. Apparently not this time! Not sure I can be bothered reprocessing it again yet, might save it for a rainy day.

Cheers guys.

Looks like I got another top pick on Astrobin too... that makes 5/6 of my recent images that got either top pick or IOTD... on a roll! Now if only I could learn to process my (L)RGB nebulae images...

[strongmanmike]

Well see?..there you go, not everyone is so paranoid about decon worms and dotified detail :nerd: :thumbsup:

Mike

[alpal]

Hi Lee,
you've got so many beautiful images on Astrobin.
You are definitely on a roll.
Yes - I can see the decon worms too if I go to full resolution
but that would be easy to back step on if you've saved versions for every major change?


cheers
Allan

[Peter Ward]

I'd suggest working on the acquisition side of your data...a tiny improvement of collimation, guiding corrections and even keeping super clean optics can improve the real resolution of an image...

Sadly de-con can often end up as all style.... but no substance. By all means
it can be used to great effect, but unfortunately can't create detail/resolution on its own.

I think of it like Formula 1: tiny increments in all aspects of the machine to shave just that little bit off each lap time: that is what will get you on the podium.

Minor quibbles aside, a solid Cent A rendition.:thumbsup:

[Placidus]

Can see the decon vermiculae folks have mentioned, but can also see the relativistic jet heading off toward top left (:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:)
and the tiny "superman" symbol in streaky dust is very clear against the general glow of the galaxy toward 6 o'clock. Colours look solid and convincing.

A very pleasing image.

Best,
MnT

[codemonkey]

Cheers guys. I've reprocessed the image with more careful use of decon. Also did a tiny bit better on the stars.

[Andy01]

Great colours Lee, you’ve made what I’ve always thought was an ugly target look great! Well done! :thumbsup:

[codemonkey]

Thanks Andy :D I'm surprised to hear you consider this an ugly target, I've always quite liked it

[Retrograde]

That's a lovely 5128 Lee. Deep, detailed and with great colours. :thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

Yup! Much better, great repro Lee.

Top shot :thumbsup:...really is an amazing galaxy...

Mike

[RobC]

Great shot Lee, congratulations.

Cheers

Rob

[codemonkey]

Thanks very much Pete, Mike and Rob :-)

[Peter Ward]

Gotta be happy with that.

Really, really solid re-pro. :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

[multiweb]

Top shot Lee. The repro's on the money. :thumbsup:

[Slawomir]

A great image Lee. I tried really hard to see the infamous worms...but could not, and then I read further comments you re-processed the image.

Me like it :thumbsup:

[beren]

:thumbsup: fine image indeed Lee congrats

[codemonkey]

Thanks very much Peter, Marc, Suavi and beren :-)

What's everyone's thoughts on the colour? It's interesting to compare this one with Mike and Peter's recent efforts. I'd like to point out that the point of this post is not to cause argument about which of these images is better, it's just interesting to compare the different approaches/results.

Mike's one is reasonably neutral in colour, Peter's looks a bit more blue. Mine clearly has a lot more red than either of those.

Truth be told, I prefer the more neutral / blue colour in terms of aesthetics and I've produced images in the past that have been more like that.

The image in my original post used PhotometricColorCalibration in PixInsight with default white reference. From there, I did drop the red a touch, but as you can see in my image, it's still a lot more red than is often shown.

Note that Vincent Peres and Juan Conejero claim the default white reference used in PCC is the "best unbiased white reference, truly representative of the observed deep sky"

I did some cursory reading... typically I'm just a "pretty picture" astrophotographer, I have little to no understanding of the science, so I could be wrong here and I'd appreciate correction if I am.

My understanding is that the exact classification of Cen A is subject to debate, but it's considered to be either an elliptical, or a lenticular galaxy. My understanding is that both of those galaxy types tend to be populated mostly by older, red stars.

I found this abstract (https://arxiv.org/abs/1011.4309) which seems to confirm that: "bulk of the stars with ages in excess of ~10 Gyr"

So based on this, I'm of the understanding that Cen A is probably a bit more red than is often shown... but frankly I don't think it looks as nice that way ;-)

Attached is a quick process using a non-standard white reference, specifically that of an elliptical galaxy. It has a lot more blue and looks closer to Mike and Peter's images in terms of colour... I personally think it looks better than my initial version. Maybe this could be considered more correct in colour from the perspective of a viewer within Cen A?

Something else to consider: how much do we actually care about the truth of the colour, whatever that is?

[RobC]

Lee you have raised a very interesting point. I am compelled to use PCC for colour balancing because I am red green colour blind. Last year I posted a very detailed image of M83 but got criticised by an IIS turkey because my image was lacking saturation in the blue wavelength. As a result of this criticism I have been hesitant to post images.

Glad to see you pointed out that PCC is considered to produce technically correct colour balanced images.

Cheers

Rob

[Paul Haese]

Nice shot Lee, love the colour and the detail is nice too.

[codemonkey]

I wouldn't let a single comment prevent you from submitting images, Rob. It is interesting how different the supposedly correct rendition is from what we typically see though... it's certainly not the norm.




Thanks Paul :-)