Bodes and Cigar

[MarkAR]

Here's my version of M81 & M82.

It's my first attempt at HaLRGB and was quite an effort figuring it all out in Pixinsight.

Ha = 20 x 600s

L = 30 x 180s

R = 30 x 180s

G = 32 x 180s

B = 28 x 180s

 

 

Third and final iteration now added further down the thread. 😁

Edited July 5, 2021 by MarkAR

[gabs]

2 minutes ago, MarkAR said:

Here's my version of M81 & M82.

It's my first attempt at HaLRGB and was quite an effort figuring it all out in Pixinsight.

Ha = 20 x 600s

L = 30 x 180s

R = 30 x 180s

G = 32 x 180s

B = 28 x 180s

Wow! 🤩 what camera did you use? Is it a cooled camera?  I am seriously thinking to replace my dsrl at some point .. but I saw the cost for some ZWO .. 😞

Edited July 4, 2021 by gabs

[Marmot]

Great shot! I like the colours that show up in Bodes in particular.

[peter shah]

Lovely work....yes Pixinsight does take a bit of getting used to....but what a program when you get your head around it

[MarkAR]

6 hours ago, gabs said:

Wow! 🤩 what camera did you use? Is it a cooled camera?  I am seriously thinking to replace my dsrl at some point .. but I saw the cost for some ZWO .. 😞

Thanks, Gabs, I use a Starlight Xpress Trius694, it's a cooled CCD.

[MarkAR]

6 hours ago, Marmot said:

Great shot! I like the colours that show up in Bodes in particular.

Thanks mate, I was hoping to get a little more detail but found it difficult to get right.

[MarkAR]

6 hours ago, peter shah said:

Lovely work....yes Pixinsight does take a bit of getting used to....but what a program when you get your head around it

Thanks Peter, tried out the new weighting script. Quite surprised that nothing was rejected. I did have a little trouble with star trails not completely clipping out in the L & B channel and ended up carefully clone stamping. Not my favourite method but it works.

 

[AstronomyUkraine]

6 hours ago, MarkAR said:

Here's my version of M81 & M82.

It's my first attempt at HaLRGB and was quite an effort figuring it all out in Pixinsight.

Ha = 20 x 600s

L = 30 x 180s

R = 30 x 180s

G = 32 x 180s

B = 28 x 180s

Nice image, the Ha is really showing through on the galaxies. Combining the Ha with the RGB can be a tricky proposition. There are quite a few methods of doing it, some are better than others, it depends on the target. NBRGBCombination is one method I use, or combining in PixelMath.

[MarkAR]

2 minutes ago, AstronomyUkraine said:

Nice image, the Ha is really showing through on the galaxies. Combining the Ha with the RGB can be a tricky proposition. There are quite a few methods of doing it, some are better than others, it depends on the target. NBRGBCombination is one method I use, or combining in PixelMath.

Thanks Brian, I used Pixelmath on this one than threw on the Lum channel after.

 

[MarkAR]

Just wondering if anyone knows the designation for the small patch of nebulosity at 12'oclock above Bodes. It seems to have a definite winged bug shape to it like a moth or fat bee.

[AstronomyUkraine]

Just now, MarkAR said:

Thanks Brian, I used Pixelmath on this one than threw on the Lum channel after.

 

That's the way I usually go. I've tried other methods but always come back to the two I mentioned. Sometimes the NBRGBCombination works great with a stretched RGB image, sometimes it's a disaster.

[AstronomyUkraine]

11 minutes ago, MarkAR said:

Just wondering if anyone knows the designation for the small patch of nebulosity at 12'oclock above Bodes. It seems to have a definite winged bug shape to it like a moth or fat bee.

The "nebulosity" is called Holmberg IX PGC 28757 - UGC 5336 and is a dwarf irregular satellite galaxy of M81.

[Sonyme]

Great detail. Besides Holmberg lX you appear to have caught a few galaxy shaped objects in the distance. 

[MarkAR]

Spent a little time on a second version. This time I didn't do a linear fit just background neutralisation as I found LF created too much noise. I used NBRGBCombination and this time tried out Masked Stretch. The core is far better defined in M81 and there didn't seem to be any loss of finer detail. Also managed to smooth the background out a lot. 

[Bob-c]

This 2nd one is a better pic Mark, very nicely done.

 

Bob.

[Gina]

Very nice Mark 👍👍

[Sonyme]

The drop in brightness has brought loads of extra detail out in both galaxies. I don't know much about processing images but I totally get what you mean about smoothing the background. The before and after is really teaching me useful stuff. Thanks Mark.    Gary

[TerryMcK]

2nd picture is great Mark

[MarkAR]

Final iteration, slight increase in saturation then Starnet to work on the stars. 

Removed some purple from the stars, pushed up the blue a touch then another tweak up in saturation before reintegrating.

[AstronomyUkraine]

23 minutes ago, MarkAR said:

Final iteration, slight increase in saturation then Starnet to work on the stars. 

Removed some purple from the stars, pushed up the blue a touch then another tweak up in saturation before reintegrating.

This version is better than the first. There is more detail and the star colour seems better too. A little trick to improve galaxy cores, HDRMultiscaleTransform using a setting of 6 or 7, improves the core and brings out a lot of fine detail.

[MarkAR]

1 hour ago, AstronomyUkraine said:

This version is better than the first. There is more detail and the star colour seems better too. A little trick to improve galaxy cores, HDRMultiscaleTransform using a setting of 6 or 7, improves the core and brings out a lot of fine detail.

Cheers for the tip.

[Sonyme]

Obviously this shot is about M81 & M82 yet Holmberg lX is most faint in your best iteration.   Gary

[rwillits]

Keeps getting better. Nice image Mark.

[MarkAR]

2 hours ago, Sonyme said:

Obviously this shot is about M81 & M82 yet Holmberg lX is most faint in your best iteration.   Gary

Jus one of the downsides of trying to retain some definition of the core of Bodes, increasing the blue wavelengths strengthens Holmberg a little as well as upping the brightness.