NGC 5128 - Centaurus A

[loc46south (Geoffrey)]

Hi All - At last we are starting to get a few fine nights - my latest effort Centaurus A - http://www.pbase.com/image/111694304 - hybrid image using a ST2000XCM for colour and a ST8 XME for Luminance.

Comments and suggestions much apprerciated - especially tips on processing as I still struggle a lot with photoshop.

Cheers
Geof

[iceman (Mike)]

Wow Geof, that's really really nice! I love it.

[Peter Ward]

Not much to say. Very tidy indeed.

[lacad01 (Adam)]

Spectacular to say the least!

[Tamtarn]

Excellent effort Geof

[jase (Jason)]

Great image Geof. Relatively tight stars and lovely details along the dust lane. A visually pleasing image indeed. Keep up the good work.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Excellent Geof

I love Centaurus A.....processed a few versions of it myself actually

Some nice details in there for sure.

You have got a bright yellow core huh?..looks dramatic.

That C9.25 looks to be a good scope and you have nailed down the guiding to take full advantage of the optics it would seem?

I had a bit of a surf around your pbase site, love the observatory.

Mike

[Hagar (Doug)]

Really nice Geof, Loads of detail. Well worth the effort.

[scopemankit (Chris)]

Wow! A great image. What scope did you use?

[marc4darkskies (Marcus)]

A really nice image Geof. Well done!! Nice image scale, tight stars, good detail. It might be nice to see more intense star colours though. Not too sure about the yellowness of the halo either, but like Jase says - a visually pleasing image.

Cheers, Marcus

[loc46south (Geoffrey)]

Thank you to all those that took the time to look a further thank you to those that took the time to comment.

Replies - Processing of the image was minimal - Flats, darks and astometrical align in Maxim V5 plus SBIG colour conversion for ST2K data then tiff conversion for import into CS3.
In PS stretched with curves and levels then luminance combined - thats all - I left it alone because I started getting into colour noise problems. I posted hoping some kind soul would help me out with PS process as this is only my second image with PS. Would like somehow to seperate faint galaxy data from background.

The yellow core and halo is what came out of the curves stretch - the blue OIII cloud and Ha dots around the galaxy looked normal so I assumed that was the colour. Image was taken to avoid saturation of galaxy - only main stars saturated.

Scope used was C9.25 with WO 0.8F/R on G-11 mount - self guided.

Cheers
Geof Wingham

[scopemankit (Chris)]

Geoff,

Using PSP5, adding gamma and upping dark I have pushed a fair bit of extra detail from the left. I hope you don't mind me messing with your image.

[loc46south (Geoffrey)]

Hi - No problem using the data - hope to shoot some more next time the sky clears and use it to try and beat the colour noise problem.

Cheers
Geof

[spearo (Frank)]

very nice indeed
sharp and great detail in the the lanes
very well done!
frank