NGC1365 - Cosmic Maelstrom

[Bassnut (Fred)]

Very nice , a pleasure to view, dust lane detail is esquisite, as expected, and tastefull colour balance. Inspirational.

[Kal (Andrew)]

Awesome pic Jase. I've just sat here for about 10 minutes staring at it. It truly is something to marvel at and enjoy

[Tamtarn]

Very much the same comments as everyone else Jase ......... A truly wonderful image, very subtle processing revealing so much detail.

Your images are always worth waiting for and although we don't always understand your technical details on processing, we have picked up bits and pieces which have helped us in our progression. So thanks for sharing your expertise.

[jase (Jason)]

Opps, missed these replies

Originally Posted by marc4darkskies

Beautiful image Jase - as always!! Any reason you keep the sky background so light? Bit of colour noise in there as well (?)
Congrats on your 1000th post too! At the rate I'm going the sun will be a white dwarf by the time I hit the submit buttom that many times. My STL is in rehab too - which doesn't help!
Cheers, Marcus

Hi Marcus,
Thanks mate. Yes, there is quite a lot of whitespace to the left of the histogram. I didn't want to raise the blackpoint too much on this image as I found I lost many background galaxies. I could have masked them again to selectively process the background. There is still some colour noise present. I haven't finished on the image as yet. I'm thinking of acquiring some Ha data and subtracting the red channel from it to see what will change in the RGB process. Not entirely sure. Too many options/permutations to think of - imaging is only limited to the astrophotographer's imagination. Thanks again for your comments.

Originally Posted by Bassnut

Very nice , a pleasure to view, dust lane detail is esquisite, as expected, and tastefull colour balance. Inspirational.

Cheers Fred. Pleased you like it (inspirational eh?).

Originally Posted by Kal

Awesome pic Jase. I've just sat here for about 10 minutes staring at it. It truly is something to marvel at and enjoy

Thanks Andrew. It helps to revisit images with fresh eyes. Having gone back to it, I can see some minor anomalies which I'll process out when I get a moment.

Originally Posted by Tamtarn

Very much the same comments as everyone else Jase ......... A truly wonderful image, very subtle processing revealing so much detail.

Your images are always worth waiting for and although we don't always understand your technical details on processing, we have picked up bits and pieces which have helped us in our progression. So thanks for sharing your expertise.

Thanks for the kind words Barb and David. It is a pleasure to assist you and others so they can develop their processing skills/knowledge of imaging set ups/techniques. Once I stop learning, I'll be quitting. Thanks again for your comments.

Cheers everyone

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Lovely image Jase Some good detail there for sure!

There is less of that salt and pepper colour noise that plagued your previous images with Brad's setup, and while it isn't bad there appears to be a slight red gradient..?

Overall a great vista

Interesting to compare your image with an image I did with the inferior optics of a 12" SCT at 1500mm FL (poor guiding though, so had to work on the eggiest stars ). The RC is an order of magnitude (or two?) better for sure!

http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike20...69925/original

Mike

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

Crikeys Jase,

the largest res image is so sharp!!! Can just about see roads on the planets in the solar systems!

But seriously, that is a nice image. Very clear and highly detailed.

[jase (Jason)]

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

Lovely image Jase Some good detail there for sure!
There is less of that salt and pepper colour noise that plagued your previous images with Brad's setup, and while it isn't bad there appears to be a slight red gradient..?

Overall a great vista

Interesting to compare your image with an image I did with the inferior optics of a 12" SCT at 1500mm FL (poor guiding though, so had to work on the eggiest stars ). The RC is an order of magnitude (or two?) better for sure!

http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike20...69925/original

Mike

Cheers Mike. Have to say you're rendition is actually quite good considering the optics and all. As I mentioned in the original post of this image, I was actually surprised by the lack of noise and gradients in the raw data. Some noise still exists in the output presented as I've yet to get around to cleaning it up. I'm going to reprocess the image once I've acquired more luminance data. I really think there is more to this galaxy given ample exposure time. The nucleus is rather bright so its an interesting object to process. Thanks again for your comments.

Originally Posted by ballaratdragons

Crikeys Jase,

the largest res image is so sharp!!! Can just about see roads on the planets in the solar systems!

But seriously, that is a nice image. Very clear and highly detailed.

Thanks Ken. Quality optics and shooting the luminance when the object is high is the key to sharpness. Once you've got reasonable data, its easier to produce a great image through processing. Thanks mate.

[danielsun]

Wow !! That's incredible Jase. Your images always blow me away!!
I can't believe how crisp and the detail of the barred ends spiralling into the centre.
Truly amazing!!

[jase (Jason)]

Thanks Daniel. I've since reprocessed this image using a few other techniques, but its still sitting on my hard drive. Its not complete yet - need to perform the high pass mask. I'll upload it when its done. It is an improvement over this one, which is hindered by a dust mote, colour noise and down-toned colours. Thanks for checking it out

[jase (Jason)]

Greetings all,

Sorry to bring back this historic thread, but I thought I’d provide a quick update.

Having reworked the original NGC1365 image a few times over, I was still not satisfied with the result. Simply, insufficient data was to blame. The break through came when Fred (Bassnut) graciously provided some additional luminance data from his recent NGC1365 post. Despite the focal length differences, Fred’s 90 minutes of luminance data once up-scaled was quite smooth, complementing my original 120 minutes worth. I proceeded to blend this using lighten and duplicated the original layer to maintain details as an overlay blend. As Fred’s data was up scaled, twisted and twirled to match the original luminance, the stars went weird shapes and sizes. To ensure consistency with the surrounding frame, I used a mask to bring back the stars in the original image.

I’m now satisfied with the resulting image. Other than collecting copious amounts more data I don’t believe I can get much more from it. The final image can be seen HERE or from the link on the original post.

Big shout out to Fred. Thanks for allowing me to use your raw luminance data to finally complete this mission. Much appreciated.

Cheers

[sailormoon]

Wow that is one great looking spiral!