I was not happy with the last image of M83. Colours were all wrong, scale was too tight. It was over processed. Not that I think this is perfect but I think a little better.
Very nice image of M83, very well resolved. The very faint dark, offset veins of material impinging into the nuclear region are well resolved in your image. These features seem common in barred spirals but often in images, the nuclear region washes these features out.
I would love to see the results you would get imaging this and other galaxies with your C 14 rather than the Tak for a larger image scale.
Trevor, I just don't think the C14 is the right tool for the job. Mirror flop and flat field issues is not going to make for a good imaging scope. If I could get those issues sorted then maybe I would give it a go. I have been thinking about one of those 8 or 10" Chinese RC's though.
The core could be tighter. Try lassoing it and feather 25 pixels. Use shadows/highlights and mainly the shadows slider. Or use curves.
Then the core should be yellower so try lassoing the core and use selective colour to enhance what yellow there is in the image.
Then rub over it with the sponge tool set to saturate and 5%.
There are red Ha areas in M83 as well but perhaps not there without adding Ha subs but you could try the above to see if there is any red there. Perhaps simply using sponge tool set to saturate and 5% would do it.
Next try eeking out more colour in the stars which are mainly white. Use the colour range tool and select the stars, expand the selection 4 pixels then feather 2 then use hue/saturation to boost the colours. You can hit control H to hide the selection so you can see the effect the processing is having more clearly.
Greg.
Last edited by gregbradley; 02-04-2009 at 02:41 PM.
Paul,
Lovely shot there, nice tight stars and you really get a nice feel for the totality of the galaxy well done
solid gold suggestions from Greg (i'm taking notes!)
Incidentally, I bought the mirror lock system from OPT for my C14 and mirror flop doesnt seem to be an issue for me, the Celestron focal reducer 6.6 also does a pretty good job as a flattener, though the system will never be like those nice new Cs that I cant afford I'm sure...
