Reprocessed sculptor

[Paul Haese]

Decided that Mike Sidonio is right about trying reprocessing images several times to find what you like best. In fact I tried using several images from Mike and Stuart to get the colour looking correct. Your thoughts?

This is the most current image since I reprocessed the data. I like the colour better, the stars are smaller and not as eaten into. Star colours though look not quite right. How does one get the star colours right with LRGB processing?

All good fun though.

Image here

thanks for looking.

[DavidU (Dave)]

Nice work Paul ! I was just having a peep at 253 last night.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Decided that Mike Sidonio is right about trying reprocessing images several times to find what you like best

Of course! what's the problem with it..? ...I dunno? astroimaging etiquette is a funny thing

In fact I tried using several images from Mike and Stuart to get the colour looking correct. Your thoughts?

Obviously they are perfect then

Nah, seriously, it looks pretty good Paul and way better than this one http://paulhaese.net/NGC253closeup.html

Do you have a larger image to give it a more critical inspection? with that kit you have now ya gotta be able to show it nearer to full size man or what's the point of the expense in getting such great gear

Very nice job

Mike

[Hagar (Doug)]

Originally Posted by Paul Haese

Decided that Mike Sidonio is right about trying reprocessing images several times to find what you like best. In fact I tried using several images from Mike and Stuart to get the colour looking correct. Your thoughts?

This is the most current image since I reprocessed the data. I like the colour better, the stars are smaller and not as eaten into. Star colours though look not quite right. How does one get the star colours right with LRGB processing?

All good fun though.

Image here

thanks for looking.

The easiest way to lift your star colour is to create a star layer either now or earlier in the processing. Lift the colour saturation till you are happy, slight gausian blur and the job is done.

Your original above looks pretty good though.
Here is a quick one.

Ah Sidonios, they now have a name, learning from master Mike.

[desler]

Yes Paul,


Not much else to say, I like all of the versions!

Darren

[multiweb (Marc)]

Colors look much better than your first version posted although the center is a bit burnt out /clipped still. Good pic though.

[Paul Haese]

Mike here you go. This image is 1800 x 1891 pixels. 1.51mb in size.

Image here

It contains the warts and all. Mike I reckon just because I have the kit does not qualify that the images will be good. That is part of this voyage I guess; learning how to make better images.

Doug - good tip. I will give that a go when I get some more data. Just a little noise creeping into the image but a great tip.

[TrevorW]

Hi Paul I noticed with mine the slight star egginess for want of a better word is this issue seeing, tracking, flex or still collimation.

nice image by the way

[spearo (Frank)]

Looks good!
frank

[Tamtarn]

Prefer this repro more than the earlier post Paul. The colour seems to be more correct

Great image

[rat156]

Hi Paul,

I found a tip about colour saturation retention on the web somewhere.

Create your colour image like normal, I use the CCDStack colour create or Photoshop. Copy the image and paste it over the luminance image (which you have already converted to RGB) twice, change the middle layer combine mode to multiply, and the top one to colour. Now muck about with the transparency of the middle layer with the slider and select the top layer and change the saturation level. Remember with saturation levels you can act on each colour RGBCMY individually to selectively knock out a colour cast. I often need to do this to remove a green cast from LP.

Oh, BTW, much better, but a little too violet for my liking, but colour is a personal preference.

Cheers
Stuart

[gregbradley]

Great shot Paul. You must be happy with that one.

A couple of stars in front of the galaxy itself got oversharpened when
you used a mask.

You can reverse the mask by clicking on black to be the foreground colour and then anything you rub then gets removed from the sharpening layer and the stars don't look oversharpened.

Greg.

[Paul Haese]

Greg I am pretty happy with the shot. Like you said some processing stuff needs sorting, but most importantly I need to get the stars sorted. Flexure or guiding is at fault and it is really bugging me. Several images I have done this year don't have it and several do. Strongman has given me an idea about positioning the guide camera in the same orientation as the imaging camera and those being north/south. I will give this a try as anything could be at fault. I suspect flexure is causing the really problem. Using my TSA as a guide scope might help too, since it has the longer focal length.

Always more to get right, but happy given this is my third Monochrome DSO image.

Thanks everyone for the comments and tips.