Ngc 1365

[rat156]

Hi All,

Here's an NGC 1365 from the 14th and 17th.

3 hours of Luminance, an hour each for each of the R, G and B, in 10 minute subs for the luminance, 5 minute binned 2x2 for the colour.

Aligned and stacked in CCDStack. Colour synthesis and final mucking about in Photoshop.

GSO 8" RC, Losmandy G11, SBIG etc (See sig).

Bigger picture available here

Cheers
Stuart

[Paul Haese]

This is a tough target Stuart. I did over 7 hours on this beast and still found noise lurking. I think 5 minute subs on this does not help overly much and with my data it created a lot of noise. You might be blending differently to what I am doing though.

You have lots of detail but there is colour noise in the image background. I don't know if you can see it. Your stars though are small and sharp. Got any tips for that?

[rat156]

Hi Paul,

The 16Bit image looks a lot better than the jpeg. When I converted the image it looked dark, so I boosted the luminance a little bit, may have overcooked it a bit? I also didin't want to incur the "you've clipped the background" wrath

Here's a nicer one...

Cheers
Stuart

[rat156]

Forgot to answer the question about the star processing.

Select the stars using the colour range tool, only the bright ones need shrinking.

Expand by 5 pixels, then feather by 2 or three.

Filter, other, minimum, 1 pixel.

If that's too much then fade the filter (edit, fade)

Works like magic.

Cheers
Stuart

[StarGazing (Alex)]

Very nice Stuart, had a look at that just recently through 14" Dob ...... Didnt look as good as that .

Alex.

[zipdrive (Dave)]

SBig with AOL.. my dream combo... nice work!

[iceman (Mike)]

Really nice stuart, lovely contrast and colours.

[multiweb (Marc)]

Very nice work Stuart. That is absolutely superb.

[Paul Haese]

Stuart yes that looks better. Thanks for the star processing guide too.