Topsy Turvy Galaxy

[poppasmurf (Shane)]

NGC 1313
90 min each of R, G, & B, 2.5 hrs of Lum taken over several nights when weather permitted.
GSO RC8, Moravian G2-2000
processed in PI

Shane

[Atmos (Colin)]

Looks like there is some nice detail showing up in that obscure looking galaxy.

[RickS (Rick)]

The galaxy looks quite good. Stars are a bit funky

[poppasmurf (Shane)]

Thanks Colin and Rick.

Rick, when you say the stars look "funky", do you mean in a good or bad way? I am still very new to PI and trying to learn what works for me, do you have any tips?

Shane

[RickS (Rick)]

Hi Shane,

Originally Posted by poppasmurf

Rick, when you say the stars look "funky", do you mean in a good or bad way?

It's unusual to see so many reddish stars unless you're seeing them through thick dust. I think you might have lost star colour somewhere in your processing. I've never imaged this target so I could be wrong, of course...

Originally Posted by poppasmurf

I am still very new to PI and trying to learn what works for me, do you have any tips?

You got some nice colour in the galaxy so it looks like you have the basics down. What did your workflow look like?

Cheers,
Rick.

[poppasmurf (Shane)]

Hi Rick, your comments are appreciated for any help with improvement,

my workflow generally goes along the lines of:
calibration
registration & intergration of individual channels
RGB channel combination & colour balance
gradient removal with DBE
colour calibration
MLT noise reduction
HT permanent stretch
HDR
LHE for contrast
masked saturation boost
LRGB combination

any tips would be greatly appreciated .

Shane

[RickS (Rick)]

Originally Posted by poppasmurf

my workflow generally goes along the lines of:
calibration
registration & intergration of individual channels
RGB channel combination & colour balance
gradient removal with DBE
colour calibration
MLT noise reduction
HT permanent stretch
HDR
LHE for contrast
masked saturation boost
LRGB combination

Looks pretty reasonable, Shane.

For web display you should convert to sRGB at the end (ICCProfileTransformation.) If your working space is already sRGB then no need to do this but check that you're embedding an ICC profile in your images.

A couple of steps you might want to consider adding at some stage are star reduction (star mask/MorphologicalTransformation with Erosion or Selection) and sharpening (clipped luminance mask/slight boost to bias at small scales in one of the wavelet tools.)

Cheers,
Rick.

[poppasmurf (Shane)]

Thanks for the tips Rick, should the star reduction and sharpening be done while image is still linear or does it not matter when it's done?

Shane