Ngc 3579

[rat156]

Hi All,

Was planning on doing this one narrowband, took the Ha, but I've put the RGB filters back in, so here it is in HaRGB.

Details at http://tinyurl.com/9243w6

Cheers
Stuart

[jase (Jason)]

Good stuff Stuart. I like the up close and personal feel given this target is usually suited to wider fields. Are you doing any HaR blending? IMO, I think the colour needs a little more punch. Still a pretty cool image though. Well done.

[Tamtarn]

Very nice Stuart like to see you do a NB version lots of detail there. As Jase mentioned a bit more colour would give it that little bit extra punch

[gregbradley]

Hey nice image Stuart. Your images have really gone to a new level.

I agree with Jase. The reds seem to have too much yellow in them. Apart from Jase's suggestion you could also try using selective colour and fiddle with red and the various sliders to make the reds a more red and less yellow/red.

Similarly you could select the stars using the colour range tool and then adjust the blues where some stars look almost teal in colour. You could move the blues to a less gree/blue using selective colour again or curves for blue and green.

The only other comment is the shape of the framing - its cropped and I see you probably wanted to keep some image real estate there but the overall effect at least to me is it attracts attention to an odd shaped size. Perhaps a taste thing, but I personally like a more fibonacci ratio'd (you know a .618 sides/length ratio approx.) rectangle or a square.

Greg.

[spearo (Frank)]

I like it a lot Stuart
perhaps a hint of unsharp mask? I mean just a whiff of a hint perhaps? Focus looks spot on but the image is just a touch soft i think?
nice shot
frank

[Alchemy (Clive)]

got in nice and close , this object every time i see it reminds me of garfield the cat. this is one object that shoots well just in Ha as a black and white as the loops of nebulosity look awesome. Nice image

[Ric]

Very nice indeed Stuart, good work.

I'll be looking forward to the NB version when you get a chance.

Cheers

[rat156]

Thanks for all the comments guys, I really appreciate it.

I have blended the Ha with the Red channel, normalised the three colours and combined in CCDStack. Saved as tif and touched up in PS.

If I try to blend in the Ha as luminance I always get the same salmon pink as the nebulosity colour. This looks better, but is it more correct?

There's a really good article on this somewhere, but I can't find it ATM.

Anyway, here's the reprocessed version.

Cheers
Stuart

[rat156]

Originally Posted by gregbradley

snip...

The only other comment is the shape of the framing - its cropped and I see you probably wanted to keep some image real estate there but the overall effect at least to me is it attracts attention to an odd shaped size. Perhaps a taste thing, but I personally like a more fibonacci ratio'd (you know a .618 sides/length ratio approx.) rectangle or a square.

Greg.

Hi Greg,

Yes I mucked up the camera alignment by about 10deg, so my Luminance was off, I cropped the image to fit. Blending the Ha and Red frames allowed me not to do this.

I liked the Widescreen effect though. Must be from watching too many 16:9 movies and having a 16:9 screen on the computer.

Cheers
Stuart

[CoolhandJo (Paul)]

Stuart, the image looks fine in the "widefiled" view. I think the image is very intersting and there is heaps of detail in there. Well done.

[spearo (Frank)]

repro looks great
frank

[jase (Jason)]

A marked improvement Stuart. Well done. HaR blends take some time to get right..(and I still stuggle with them). I usually use the R channel as the bottom layer, then layer over the Ha as lighten mode. Leave both images are unstretched I should add. You can also leave the top Ha layer in normal mode and also change the opacity.

Originally Posted by rat156

If I try to blend in the Ha as luminance I always get the same salmon pink as the nebulosity colour. This looks better, but is it more correct?

Yes, it can do that. One method of addressing this is to blend the Ha luminance at 50%, flatten, boost saturation of the image, mostly red. Then re-layer the Ha again at a higher opacity percentage. By performing the initial HaRGB image, you've got a better chance of matching the chrominance data with the rich/contrasty Ha. There's a few other ways of handling this, but if you come up with something else, please share. Always looking for ways to improve the integration of Ha data.

Also, I recommend you re-layer a basic RGB over the top of this image to bring back the star colours.

[Hagar (Doug)]

I have to agree with the others. Version 2 gets my vote. It may be a little over cooked but you have preserved the detail and lifted the colour well.

Nice Image.