My first LRGB Of M51

Hi All,

Here is my first LRGB of any Galaxy I found the processing very difficult .But also a very good learning curve in imaging processing, I said to myself just get in there and do your best and this is what I came up with. Anyway details are.

M51 The Whirlpool Galaxy LRGB- 180-90,90,90 Mins through a William Optics FLT-110 Triplet APO refractor Atik 4000 cdd camera. Guided with a Celestron 80ED And Sac 4.2 CCD camera with PhD guiding software On a CGE mount. Processed in Images Plus V3.5 and Photoshop CS2

webtreatz.com/component/option,com_zoom/...eNo,10/key,89/hit,1/

Any tips on processing would be most welcome.

Carl.

Carl,

Well done on your first LRGB of a galaxy.
You certainly picked a great target!
I can never get tired of looking at M51.

In terms of processing, I can't help you with LRGB too much I'm afraid as I have yet to try out the filter wheel with my camera. If I were to be picky, the only comment that I would make is that it seems to have a slight green-ish tint to it, especially at the lower levels of brightness at the outer fringes of the galaxy. Why this would be I'm not sure. Perhaps if the green channel was clipped a fraction mabey?? I'd be interested to hear what others think.

There are many positives worth mentioning though: the tracking is good, the framing & FOV are good, the colour in NGC5195 looks great, you captured that other little galaxy nicely too and the image is perfectly focused.

Michael.

Nice result Carl. The LRGB combine sounds straight forward to do but it can be a nightmare to get colour balance right which is usually via trial and error.

I think the balance is slightly off but not by much. You can get the RGB weight factors for your ccd, filters and scope from software which you could buy on line or you could ask around on the Atik forums if anyone had the weight factors. Once you have those then its just a matter of pixel math eg RGB weights 1.2:1:0.85 means that you multiply each colour master frame by that factor, then do a white balance on the stars.

How did you combine the L and RGB images in PS? What I do is blur the RGB image slightly, convert the luminance to RGB and copy in the RGB. I then decrease the opacity of the RGB layer and boost its saturation and of course change the combine mode to colour.

Very very nice Carl. I am for the first time looking at image processing. You seem to have it well mastered.

Hi all,

Webtreatz is up updated with a new processed image webtreatz.com/component/option,com_zoom/...eNo,10/key,89/hit,1/ This image is a much bigger scale then the original.Also how many Galaxy's can you see in the image.

Thanks for the comments everyone. Kieran this is something I have not came across before. But I see where you are coming from.I came a cross this on the web www.astro-imaging.com/Tutorial/LRGB_I.html .

Carl

Excellent images there Carl. As usual, more stunning pictures to amaze us all. I am really looking forward to seeing more from your new setup, if the weather allows.

Best regards

Steve