NGC5128 Centaurus A - 24 hrs LRGB

[brisen]

I have finally managed to get an image that I am somewhat happy with after having spent a few days trying various approaches to the processing of this in Pixinsight.At some point I might come back and try and improve on this from the processing perspective as I am still learning PI. This is my first attempt at LRGB from home in a while.

Taken with an Atik One 6.0 on an Esprit 150 over 3 nights in the last week while I had some clear skies. The seeing wasn't the best at times and varied across the 3 nights. 24 hours of data in 600 second images using Baader LRGB filters. Clouds beat me to the extra hour of Blue.

L = 10 hrs
R = 5 hrs
G = 5 hrs
B = 4 hrs


Link to bigger version is https://astrob.in/full/b3wcuj/0/

The attached image didn't come out well when reduced to upload here - above version is better.

Brian

[RobC]

Good starting attempt at using PixInSight. However your image is suffering from artifacts that have more than likely been introduced from the inappropriate application of PixInsight processes. As you are finding there is a steep learning curve with PixInsight. Just keep at it nd you will get there.

Cheers

Robc

[gregbradley]

What a great effort. You caught the jet somewhat there too (just to the left of the bottom triangle of bright stars). That could be enhanced more.

A very natural look.

Greg.

[AnakChan]

Great job! I'm imaging this right now and I'm way way way short of integration time as you have. It's also my 1st time attempting mono with an astro camera (coming from a cooled DSLR previously).


I saw artifacts only from the IIS attachment but didn't see in the Astrobin link version?

[alpal]

Very nice Brian,
I think there is more that could be pulled out of your data.
Have a look here:
http://www.imagingdeepsky.com/Tutorials/MSDLB_Stream/MSDLB_Stream.html


Some people say that Ken Crawford is cheating but I like what he does:
sharpening and boosting colour in selected areas of the image.



cheers
Allan

[brisen]

Thanks Greg, when I get a chance I will go back and reprocess this as I realised after uploading it that I didn't do any sharpening. I was going to add some Ha to this as well but the clouds arrived before I got that far.



Thanks Sean. The artefact in the jpeg here are from compression, I don't see the artefact in the Astrobin image either. It is nowhere near as compressed as the small version here.



Thanks Allan. I agree that there is more that can be pulled out of this and I will have a go at doing that when I get a chance, I realised I missed the sharpening step after I uploaded the file. Thanks for the link, I will have a look at it. I had been following the approach Warren Keller uses in his book.

Brian

[multiweb]

Beautiful shot Brian. Love the highres. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[Mickoid]

I wish I could get artifacts looking like that. Very nicely done, especially from your early attempt at processing this in PixInsight. You're off to a great start! :thumbsup:

[brisen]

Thanks Michael

[brisen]

Thanks Marc.

[Placidus]

Missed seeing this one. The relativistic jet is very clear. Well done.

[brisen]

Thanks Mike and Trish.

Brian

[Atmos]

24 hours of LRGB, that’s a lot of beautiful data to play with :thumbsup:

[Paul Haese]

That's nice Brian. Natural colour and the jet is also just visible.

[Jeff]

Wow ... that has come up wonderfully well Brian.
Congratulations!

[brisen]

I made a last minute decision to enter this image in the Skywatcher Astrophotographer of the Year competition and found out about 10 days ago that the image had been shortlisted.

The winners were announced this afternoon and I was successful in picking up one of the 4 silver awards in the Deep Space section. Given this was taken from home in Bortle 5 skies I am more than happy with the result.

The submitted version at https://astrob.in/full/b3wcuj/0/

Brian

[graham.hobart]

that is fantastic- great processing too- you could almost dive in there !! Lovely shot and tenacious work!

[Imme]

Well and truly deserved.

Congratulations!

[brisen]

Thanks Graham and Jon