Whirlpool in colour

Folks - finally got around to processing a colour image taken on Monday night. I used the DSI without its IR filter so the colour balance may not be the best. The IR filter helps colour shouts but increases exposure time by about 20 to 25%. When I get the mount properly calibrate ( ) I'll try the colour shot again.

Enjoy!

Cheers

Dave McD




Details:
Object M51 (Whirlpool galaxy)
Date/time 10/05/05 00:40 UTC
Exposure 30 sec
Image no. 7
Imager DSI
Mount AP1200
Scope C8 SCT, F6.3 reducer

Hi Dave,

Funnily enough I'm doing a project on producing nice colour images from raw data at the moment, and M51 is one of my targets; with other peoples images mind you! In your image the colour seems reasonably ok; possibly it should be a little redder, but as you say thats probably the lack of the IR filter swamping colour somewhere.

By the way, there is a "green" star on the left hand side near the top. Its not there in reality; or you have just discovered the first ever green supernova It's possible though that its an IR star, but I don't see it listed in any catalogue.

Cheers,
~Al

Cheers Al - balancing the red component was not easy. And yes, I noticed that green yoke. It only shows up in one image so it can't be a CCD artifact. And unlikely to be be an IR star. Could be a cosmic ray hit though.

If you want the original images for your project, I can send them on. I'm now going to try and reprocess this one using Registax per Bill H's recommendation.

Also, there's a mistake in the details below. I actually took a total of 14 30 second images for the final posted one... :oops:

Cheers

Dave McD

If you want the original images for your project, I can send them on.

no thanks

I've to use supplied data, about a gigabyte of flats, biases, objects etc. The last thing I want is more data

Cheers,
~Al

Registax processing resulted in no improvements I'm afraid.

1 gig of images to process - that's some headache! Good luck

Cheers

Dave McD

very good detail Dave, expecially considering it was a 30sec exposure.