ngc 3324 Abreak in the clouds

[alan meehan]

Well with what seems like ages i have had i break in the wheather so i thought i would get this shot in of ngc3324 ,40d cooled camera on the 127 prostar 5hrs 40 min,processed in pixinsight at which i have become a bit rusty
AL

[cventer]

Nice work. Guiding looks good.

The red is a great color. My only comment for improvement is you don't have much star color. That little cluster at top left is supposed to have blue stars around the orange one. You can see an example of the colors here http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=89049

Don't know pi at all but this usually happens when lum image is stretched too much before color is applied. But given you have dslr I'm not sure what advice to give.

Cheers
Chris

[alan meehan]

Thanks Chris i think you are right there i might have stretched the image a bit too much ,also using a astromick cls filter seems to subdue the blue stars
AL

[jjjnettie]

aye , it's a tad over stretched Al.
You've got a lot of good data there.

[alan meehan]

Hi jjj my trouble is too keen to pull the data out

[alan meehan]

Did a repro i think this looks better

[Paul Haese]

The image looks good, but some slight adjustments will improve it overall.

In Curves push the blue channel a bit to help bright out the blue stars and negate the problems with star colour.

Then use a little more Saturation of around 12%, to taste of course.

Then use a layer mask and apply the minimum filter to that and have an opacity of around 50%. Watch the star cluster for stars merging though. This will change the look of your image and reduce the brightness of the stars.

Hope that helps.:)

[marc4darkskies]

Looking good Alan - the repro is better. :thumbsup: I don't think it's over stretched but as Paul suggests, blue is a bit under represented and the stars lack colour.

Keep at it mate!!

[Ross G]

A good photo Alan.

Nice colour and detail.

Ross.

[TrevorW]

Try for SID no. 5 it'll be right by then

Keep at it Alan

[cventer]

Nice work. The repro definately brings out a little more blue in stars. Good job.

[alan meehan]

Thanks guys and thanks Paul i will give that ago on sid no 6
AL