Another M51

[ManuelJ]

Hi,

After a pair of months of rain, I had a short window of two "clear" days. I could finally finish my short photograph of M51. Next year I'll add more hours.

Hope you like it. Any comments are welcome.

 M51

Regards,
Manuel.

[Lex]

Manuel,

I am used to say perfect to your images, really eyepopping!
Impressive!

[Juan Conejero]

Hi Manuel,

I am sure you have enough data in this image to achieve a very nice and well balanced rendition; you just have to think on the data as it actually is: a single data set that you have to transform to maximize information as a whole, in a coherent way.

I don't like the way you have processed high SNR areas selectively. The difference between high and low signal areas is overly evident, to an unacceptable point in my opinion. I don't like the color treatment either. I am not speaking strictly of color balance, which is a matter of personal taste to a large extent. I refer more to the way color has been used to represent some image structures.

As I see it, you have to reprocess these data from scratch

[vicent_peris]

Hi,

The problem with the color of your image is that, from less than a certain illumination level, the color turns towards the blue. Compare with my image:



See that the streams coming from the companion in my image are yellowish but the stream at the end of the spiral arm of the main galaxy is clearly bluish. In your image all these streams, as well as the outer areas of the companion galaxy, are blue.

Did you make a different histogram / curves adjustment for each color channel? Which was the resulting color from Excalibrator? Remember that the ColorCalibration and BackgroundNeutralization tools must be applied always to linear images, never after delinearization of the data.


Regards,
Vicent.

[ManuelJ]

It seems that I have some work to do

Many thanks for your comments!

[joakin]

Very good image and the image of Vincent too,
Congratulations to both,
regards
joakin

[ManuelJ]

Hi,

I think I'm in the right direction

[vicent_peris]

Yes.


V.

[Juan Conejero]

Absolutely! 

[vicent_peris]

An important note here. The first version shows deeper areas and finer detail in the galaxy bodies compared to the second version. But the second version is much more honest, in the sense that it has much less artifacts coming from the image processing work. I do prefer the second just for this reason.


Regards,
Vicent.

[RBA]

The image in the web site is the second version or the original one?

[ManuelJ]

The image in the web site is the second version or the original one?

The original one, the second is just a WIP.

[ManuelJ]

Hi,

I have uploaded the final version for this year. Many thanks for your help, you made me improve one step further.

Now I'll wait for next year to catch more and better data.

Regards,
Manuel.