Hdr ic342

[Ken Crawford]

Hello,

As many of you know, this is a difficult galaxy to image and process as it has lots of foreground dust. I am attempted to remove the effects of the dust as an exercise of color balance and boosting along with HDR tonal adjustments to try and make the colors and details "pop".

So for your amusement . . . .:D

http://www.imagingdeepsky.com/Galaxies/IC342/IC342.htm

Kindest Regards,

[atalas]

Ken,excellent.

[CoolhandJo]

Your method certainly is defining the galaxy. It does stand out but possibly the spirals could be blended a bit but the that would defeat the purpose wouldn't it! Excellent as usual.

[starfinder]

Ken, my eyes definitely popped when I saw it :eyepop:. A stunningly beautiful galaxy and superbly processed.

[John Hothersall]

This is a tough target and such a big galaxy with a very faint surface magnitude owing to dust no doubt. Star clusters within are showning well with those dust lanes.

John.

[Ken Crawford]

Thanks John, you are right about faint surface magnitude. It is thought that the dust removes 2.4 magnitudes and this galaxy would be one of the brightest in the sky!

[Paul Haese]

Lovely work and fantastic colours Ken. Real joy to view.

[spearo]

impressive
frank

[Ken]

That is a great image well done, just wondering how you can get stars that small with such a long focal length. Good seeing and guiding helps but are you using AO as well, I struggle with half that focal length.
Clear skies the other Ken.