Leo Trio - a composite portrait

[marc4darkskies (Marcus)]

Originally Posted by allan gould

Marcus - a really great shot. Composite or not its spectacular in it rendition of the faint outer regions, especially the tidal tail in M66. Great composition showing the different aspects of each of these galaxies their dust etc. Remarkable and best presentation of the trio Ive seen. Was it 3 hr for each galaxy?

Thanks a lot Allan! . They were captured in a single image. The 3 fit nicely into one frame at F11.7 (1760mm). I just lassoed NGC 3628 and M65 and dragged them closer to M66. Should look pretty special when I can add som RGB!

[gregbradley]

That's gonna make it hard to line up your RGB images. How you gonna do that? Use the "transform" function in photoshop? Its not that accurate by hand.

Greg.

[Octane (Humayun)]

Marcus,

Sublime. That is an insane amount of detail in your luminance frame (I don't know, I've never taken one, but, that looks the goods to me).

Looking forward the the staggering final image.

H

[RobF (Rob)]

Originally Posted by gregbradley

That's gonna make it hard to line up your RGB images. How you gonna do that? Use the "transform" function in photoshop? Its not that accurate by hand.

Greg.

Me too...wondering how to go about matching the RGB in?

Equipment and technique is already so far ahead of me I've GOT to learn SOMETHING

[alexch (Alex)]

Originally Posted by gregbradley

That's gonna make it hard to line up your RGB images. How you gonna do that? Use the "transform" function in photoshop? Its not that accurate by hand.

Greg.

Photoshop CS5 has Autoblend feature for layers. Works wonders on blending exposure differences daytime panorama images.

Alex

[marc4darkskies (Marcus)]

Originally Posted by gregbradley

That's gonna make it hard to line up your RGB images. How you gonna do that? Use the "transform" function in photoshop? Its not that accurate by hand.

Greg.

Originally Posted by RobF

Me too...wondering how to go about matching the RGB in?

Equipment and technique is already so far ahead of me I've GOT to learn SOMETHING

No, I'm processing the full frame, not the composite. I'll add the RGB to the full frame and finish processing. Then, if I want to, I'll simply drag 'em back for the composite look! BTW, it was a 60 second job to move them (quite arbitrarily) in the first place.

Originally Posted by Octane

Marcus,

Sublime. That is an insane amount of detail in your luminance frame (I don't know, I've never taken one, but, that looks the goods to me).

Looking forward the the staggering final image.

H

Cheers Humayun - yes, amazing isn't it for only a 150mm scope!!! ... I was kinda surprised myself - hence my excitement to post an unfinished image!

Originally Posted by alexch

Photoshop CS5 has Autoblend feature for layers. Works wonders on blending exposure differences daytime panorama images.

Alex

There was no special technique or work done to make the composite, it is not a mosaic ... just lasso and drag (making sure not to leave half a star anywhere).