Hi all, it has been few weeks I started playing with Pixinsight and I have to say I am really hooked with it. It has not the most intuitive interface but some of the function available are really amazing. In particular I like the way it can manage high dynamic and compress it working always with 32 bit files, something that PS cannot do.
I decided so to reprocess a picture I took some years ago (in 2008) when I was still imaging from Italy the few times I was back home. I took back so the original composed fits files of M31, a target that is very difficult in Australia because the low elevation but that transit at zenith in Italy, taking advantage so of best trsparency and lowest light pollution damage. At that time I couldn't expose for long time since I could take advantage of only a handful nights per year, therefore the total exposure is "only" 5 hours. I had the good idea to take a mix of "long" subframes (10 mins each) and shorter frames (3 mins each) to recover all details from the core.
Here is the result of the new blending:
http://www.glitteringlights.com/Imag..._qz4qtMT-X3-LB
As usual I also add the full res / full screen version visible here:
http://astrosurf.com/lorenzi/ccd/M31_HaLRGB.htm
Here is for comparison the old version:
http://astrosurf.com/lorenzi/ccd/M31_HaLRGB_big.jpg
Processing was done using both Pixinsight (mostly on removing gradients and processing the luminance/Ha) and Photoshop (color calibration and saturation and final touch up). It is amazing to me the difference that 3 years of more experience in image processing combined with new tools can produce in the final result.
Hope you will like it
Clear Skies
Marco