My last process of this data revealed lots of detail and some of the halo but I was not overly happy with the results. It looked too contrasted and the colour was dark blue/red. So I collected a bit more data in the colour and reprocessed the data from scratch. My question is what is the actual colour of this galaxy? It's a rhetorical question really.
All I did to answer this question in my mind is push the saturation and boost the contrast a bit but not too much.
I think the colour looks more natural than my previous rendition and the halo is a lot brighter.
That's a fantastic image Paul. The blue areas are positively glowing which looks fantastic. The yellow core looks very luminous. An image to be proud of.
Thanks Greg, Rick, Lee, Peter, Steve and Erik for your comments. I think I can finally put this one to bed now. Bit tired of staring at it too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by alpal
Hi Paul,
that is a superb image.
I love the colours.
What else could you do - maybe add some Ha subframes?
cheers
Allan
Thanks Allan, I don't think I am going to go down the Ha sub frames route at this time. Maybe next year I will collect that and add to some more luminance to collect more data on the back ground galaxies.
Good before, but the colour is now utterly superb. The colour in the outermost, non-star-forming super-faint area is much better, as is the colour in the distant galaxies, which also seem a tad sharper.
There might be some resultant and inevitable loss of contrast in the beautiful galactic fountain dust streamers, but your streamers are still unbelievably sharp and clear - lovely processing and something to aspire to.
Good before, but the colour is now utterly superb. The colour in the outermost, non-star-forming super-faint area is much better, as is the colour in the distant galaxies, which also seem a tad sharper.
There might be some resultant and inevitable loss of contrast in the beautiful galactic fountain dust streamers, but your streamers are still unbelievably sharp and clear - lovely processing and something to aspire to.
Best,
Mike
Thanks Mike, there is always a balancing act between contrast and brightness I think. I went back to look at the original image many times and in the end I just thought it needed a reprocess. I kept thinking it looks too dark and the halo is not well shown.
I don't think the streamers are as good as those shown by Jay Gebany in his image but I think my image gives a little of everything.
I did sharpen the background galaxies just a little and that is well spotted.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Slawomir
Looks really really great, worthy printing IMO
Thanks Slawomir, the first version appeared in this months A&T. It looked ok but a little dark. This should look better.
A mighty fine 253 if ever I saw one if it wasn't for you guys pushing the boundaries some of the rest of us wouldn't have as much to aspire to!
Thanks Dunk, its good to push the boundaries of what has been achieved so far. No doubt this will continue to improve every where across the imaging world.
Quote:
Originally Posted by topheart
Nailed it!
Tim
Thanks Tim, still think it could do with a few more hours, but there are more pressing targets on the list that need attention now.
The only slight niggle is the asymmetric colour in the halos of the brightest stars - might be worth desaturating them slightly - but that really is nit picking in the extreme.
The only slight niggle is the asymmetric colour in the halos of the brightest stars - might be worth desaturating them slightly - but that really is nit picking in the extreme.
Thanks Ray. It is kind of weird why this happened. I remember looking at these stars during processing and trying to determine the colour of the three main bright ones. Some images show them as blue and some show them as orange. I will need to consult with a star catalogue to get the actual star spectral type. However, that does not explain how this asymmetric colouring has occurred. I suspect it is just a bit of miss alignment and you have quite rightly pointed it out. I had forgotten about them and considered them as white noise. Time to sort that out and actually find out why that occurred.
Edit: I have just reduced this problem a little bit so it is now not as evident.
Last edited by Paul Haese; 06-11-2015 at 12:30 PM.
looking good. just for interest, the two bright stars are B-V of 0.6 and 0.57, which means they are pretty close to the sun - ie pastel yellow (http://www.vendian.org/mncharity/dir...r/details.html). The renditions that show them as blue or orange are taking some liberties with the light .
FWIW, I have had colour oddities on very bright stars when taking colour data on different sides of the meridian - I assume that the scope flexes slightly and the diffraction skirts of the brightest stars do not match up precisely if one colour is taken on a different side from the other two. I haven't tested the theory, since it has only happened occasionally and is easy enough to tidy up.
