[Geoff45 (Geoff)]

Originally Posted by Regulus

Love the palette you've used for this image Geoff. Gives the galaxy some detail depth, and a nice dusty look :-)

Well done

Trevor

Thanks Trevor

Originally Posted by Shiraz

Beauty Geoff - good smooth detail. My first thought was that it was lacking in blue, but then, I guess that it should be if it is behind some heavy dust. Nice work.

I have also been trying 2x2 colour binning and can't fault it as a way to speed things up - is that your experience?

Thanks Ray. Most of the images on the web are similar, although some deep images show tinges of blue and red http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150528.html
Yes, I think colour binning is the way to go unless you have loads of imaging time. I tried bin1 for colour for a while, but I was always having to push really hard to get good saturation.

Originally Posted by Placidus

Another very fine image, Geoff.

That big blue star (xi 1 centauri) is spectral class A0, I think. You've captured its colour contrast with the yellow dust-obscured galaxy beautifully.

You've also brought out lots of internal detail and subtlety in the dust lanes.

Nice work.

Thanks Mike and Trish. This was actually quite hard to process, in particular taming xi Cent and pushing the contrast in a fairly bland galaxy.

Originally Posted by Atmos

Very nicely done! Used to seeing more colour in galaxies but as you say, viewing it through vast amounts of dust can tend to remove colour. The galaxy itself looks like it is nothing more than a very distant giant cloud of dust.
You have also managed to tame that reasonably bright star too!

Thanks Colin