Here we have NGC2997, a Magnitude 10 face on spiral galaxy approx 9x7 arcmins in size and 25 Million Light years from my place.
According to Wiki, NGC2997 is particularly notable for a nucleus surrounded by a chain of hot giant clouds of ionized hydrogen.
Taken with my 8in F5 scope and QHY12 colour camera, approx 11 hours of exposure time spread over 3 nights.
There's a surprising amount of detail in there, for example in the fine dust lanes spiralling right in to the very centre. Good contrast. The colours in most of the stars in the image look spot on, and the differences between them are beautiful. Good star shapes too.
The centre of the galaxy, and the stars in the central half or so of the galactic disk, look a bit too yellow, as if they have been processed differently from the rest of the image. Very minor: the blacks are a tiny bit clipped. Slightly less clipping might get you a bit more of the right end of the bottom spiral arm.
Rick: Thanks for the advise on noise reduction, I used the same settings as I used to do without dithering. Now that I am dithering I will try to remember to decrease the amount of noise reduction now.
Mike: Yes this is only my second image with dithering, makes a difference that's for sure.
M&T: Regarding the yellow stars I did use the "cap green to yellow" switch (Startools) which may have increased the yellow in those stars.
The black clipping is caused by using the Isolate parameter in Startools, where you lassoo a mask around the galaxy and Startools pushes the background back making the galaxy stand out.
Thanks all, for the gentle advise, I'm still learning.
Cheers
Bill
Don't push the noise reduction too much going for a smooth result at the expense of detail.
