[codemonkey (Lee)]

Originally Posted by marc4darkskies

That's a ripper image Lee - very pleasing to look at!! thumbsup:

I didn't initially notice any artefacts but if you look long enough at the full res you can see only a couple of very minor, easy to miss issues. Certainly nothing that detracts from the image!

I use Neat Image for my noise control. It allows for detailed, in depth control over noise profiles in an image. I use the PS plugin but it is also standalone. No noise software should sharpen unless you ask for it.

Thanks Marc :-)

Yeah, I can see what Mike's referring to, I just know how long it took me to process this image and how far back in the processing chain I'd have to go to fix it... and I don't think it's bad enough to justify the effort. Maybe on a rainy day when I'm not sick of looking at this data :-)

Topaz is amazing at reducing noise, but it does horrible things to stars and is often way over the top even when dialling everything right back. I like to think I usually notice the issues and resolve them by blending back into the original data, but obviously missed some stuff this time.

Originally Posted by multiweb

Pretty cool shot Lee, nice colors. Gotta agree with Mike. The highlights are blobly in the high res. Shame coz otherwise your star profiles are always impeccable.

Hmm, I don't think Mike's referring to blobs in the highlights at all, he's talking about thin wormy structures so I think you're talking about something else there. And yeah, some of this data was shot under really ****ty seeing. I could probably make the stars a bit less blobby, I didn't give them much attention to be honest.

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

And all fair enough too Lee, I get it

Particularly in the case of regularly imaged targets, like this pair and when you consistently produce such good work, it is only ever going to be fairly minor things that can be suggested to further improve an already good image and such comments do risk appearing, to those that don't know the connection we have at least, perhaps somewhat picky but as you know, I'm a big fan of your work and any comments I ever make (apart from those lauding the processing ground you walk on ) are very genuine comments and not criticisms, made knowing full well you will understand the motivation behind them I love this image game palava and don't pass disingenuous comments about anyone's images

If an image is of a less well known or rarely imaged object the processing quality is much less of a concern to me and the intriguing nature of the target tends to dominate any comments made

Already looking forward to your next posting

Mike

All good mate, appreciate the honest feedback :-) Might be a while before the next one... weather's gone to **** now and I seem to have developed some astig (again), possibly weather related. Getting eccentricity up into the 0.7, not in line with RA or Dec, present in short exposures and flips orientation 90 degrees either side of focus. I'm guessing one of the mirrors is not liking the cold weather.

Got about 15hrs of H on M16, looks pretty sharp but lots of it was shot under near full moon through thick fog and has elongated stars due to the astig... that data's gonna take some work but I might be able to salvage it.

Thinking I'm gonna go with a quartz mirror for the next scope, astig seems to come and go with this one pretty regularly... drives me nuts.

Originally Posted by JA

Wonderful image Lee

Best
JA

Thanks, glad you like it