Another M83

[DiscoDuck (Paul)]

Sorry. Another M83.

My second target from the last few nights (other was Eta Car - see recent post) was M83. Stuck in the suburbs of Adelaide due to COVID when I was meant to be at a dark sky site this weekend. Hence kept to the bright targets!

About 10 hours of data (inc. 3 Ha) with a ZWO 294MM Pro on an RC8.

Astrobin version here.

[kosborn (Kevin)]

I love the image. That little bit of extra focal length is great for galaxies. The only reason mine was zoomed in was because I had to crop out the shadow from the badly positioned off-axis guider prism!

I'm interested in the colour of the halo around the galaxy. Did you do a colour calibration?

Kevin

[Dave882 (David)]

Lovely m83. I really like the colour balance and those Ha regions really stand out. Great stuff

[DiscoDuck (Paul)]

Thanks both.

I wouldn't rely on that halo being at all accurate in colour, Kevin. I had terrible trouble getting the colour balance right. Mixing in the Ha didn't make the process any easier. But I did various incarnations of PI's ColorCalibration process at various points other than the usual one at linear state for the RGB i.e. needed fixing after stretching. Wasn't sure exactly why it was out. But being shot in the 'burbs, there was plenty of background light/gradients to contend with too.

[TrevorW]

Great effort nice colour

[DiscoDuck (Paul)]

Thanks Trevor.

Kevin, I tried to balance the colour again and remove a bit of that red cast - and a bit of a blue gradient on the left. Link to Astrobin updated. Thanks for the catch. Even more dodgy now (in terms of authenticity) but IMHO looks a bit better.

[alan meehan (Alan)]

Spot on

[DiscoDuck (Paul)]

Thank you, Alan.

[matlud (Mathew)]

A very nice M83 Paul, the extra Ha has really helped. Cheers, Mat

[DiscoDuck (Paul)]

Thanks Mat.