[alocky (Andrew lockwood)]

Originally Posted by Arthur Coombs

Hi Andrew, from one imager in light polluted Melbourne to another in Perth, I think you have done very well with capturing M 83. You have done a great job in your overall processing, including the very centre of the barred galaxy. I found it difficult not to burn out this area. Re the overall colour, you may possibly need to look at the filter factors when initially combining the RGB images. These factors take into account your complete system:- telescope optics, filters and the characteristics of the camera chip. As Alan suggests, a final tune up can be carried out in Photoshop.
Overall, well done
All the best, Arthur.

Thanks Arthur - I was going to image a few standard colour stars and work out what the filter coefficients should be next. The second version in this thread uses background neutralisation and the Pixinsight colour balance tool setting the central region of M83 to white. The step I'd goofed on was doing the LRGB combination in linear space, not after stretching the data. I quite like the colour now!
cheers,
Andrew.