M65-66 from a couple of clear nights - now with colour.

[[1ponders]]

Taken over a couple of nights, there's around 5 hours of data here. I'm happy with the detail but I am still finding it a challenge to get any sort of colour data out of my galaxy shots using the SX 25. Neb shots are fine, but the colour is coming up short on the small galaxies.

It was very nice to be outside again for a couple of nights though. :)

[h0ughy]

nice to see Paul. How come you cant get colour? it is a one shot colour isnt it?

[[1ponders]]

yes it is but I've been struggling with it for some reason. Shooting nebs is np, plenty of colour, big galaxies (253) np plenty of colour. But these smaller galaxies are a bit more challenging. It might be a setting in DSS but be blowed if I can find it

[strongmanmike]

Great shot that, with or without colour.

Mike

[RickS]

Yes, very nice Paul!

[allan gould]

That's a great image Paul and its interesting that the stars also lack colours. A bit weird.

[[1ponders]]

Thanks guys, it was great to be out again. Yeah I'm not sure what is going one there Allan. If you look at the diffraction spikes you can see there is colour there (rainbow effect) and in the back ground there is plenty of colour noise. And the subs were 10min so i expect some colour loss in the stars, but to me atm the whole thing looks like its almost grey scale. In the processed Tiff there is some small amount of colour around the center of the galaxies but that's about it. I think I need to learn to use Maxim to do my processing and give DSS a miss for a while.

[Paul Haese]

I like the detail in this data. Have you tried some colour masking to bring out the galaxy and star colours? If not duplicate layer from background, ramp up the saturation, then hide layer and paint in colour. Use opacity to taste, then use gaussian blur of around 6 pixels and then flatten image. That should sort out some of those problems.

[[1ponders]]

I've tried a few things Paul, still a few to go, I'll give that a try and see if it works. The thing is I shouldn't have to fight to bring out colour that was originally there. Looking at the subs in Maxim there is plenty of colour there, but when they come out of DSS they are almost grey scale. I thought I had it sorted the other night but it looks not.

[RobF]

There is certainly plenty of lum detail Paul. Might be time to invest in Pixinsight or CCDstack to make sure you're getting max value from your data? Maxim should be able to to a pretty good job too as you say.

[[1ponders]]

Yes, I've been thinking along those lines as well Rob. But for the time being i think I've solved the problem ... for the time being.

So here's a quick repro, but this time with colour. I've cropped it a bit as well to improve the balance of the image. Quite happy with this now:D

edit:I'm also quite happy that the slight haze to the lower right of M66 (top) is real and not some image artifact. I spent a bit of time trying to process it out in the first image cos I thought it wasn't 'real' :P :D

[[1ponders]]

Rob's idea got me thinking so here is the final version, combining the two using the first shot as a Lum for the colour. Not bad. Pretty happy with it actually. Thanks Rob. :thumbsup:

[RobF]

There's certainly a heck of a lot of dust detail coming and, and glad if colour is behaving now Paul. Glad too if some laterial thinking was triggered. :)

[[1ponders]]

thanks Rob, sometimes i need a little kick to get me going. :P

[gregbradley]

Very sharp and detailed but too yellow. There should be considerable blue in there. Have a look at some samples on the net.

Greg.

[swannies1983]

A nice image Paul. I agree with Greg's comments that it's a bit too yellow. I originally did the same thing to mine but added a bit more blue to the outer regions, keeping a touch of yellow in the core.

[TheDecepticon]

Certainly a great effort!:thumbsup: Nice detail in the galaxies.

[multiweb]

Really nice. Details and structure are amazing. Top shot. :thumbsup:

[[1ponders]]

Thanks guys. I'll give it another tweek. ;) :thumbsup: