M51 - First Color Attempt

In December 2005 I finally abandoned film (or it abandoned me) and set out in the world of CCD imaging with a ST8XME and my 1992 C11. Whoever said there was a long learning curve was dead on. Computers, CCD cameras, autoguiding (never did do that with film), cords everywhere, precise guiding, precise focusing, all this stuff had to be relearned. Color was something I always wanted to do but never did with film. So, here it is. My first attempt at taking a color shot. I decided to start with a common target so I could gauge the results. Taken with a C11 with an Optec .5x reducer.

Chris
Cedar, MN

Attached Image:

Great shot Chris! specially for a FIRST color attempt... 8)
I played a lil' bit with Photoshop, adjusted a bit of levels & brightness & applied a little bit of Unsharp Mask... hope you won't mind... (I could be a little off, since my monitor is LCD)

Try not to make your background sky so dark, as you could be clipping data... (you'll see here)...

Keep it up, and keep them coming! 8)

Attached Image:

Looks like a great first attempt.The learning curve has been long and steep for me.
Nice job

Very nice Chris! The detail looks great.

Very nice Chris. When did you capture the image? If in Dec 05, that's about the speed I am getting around to doing something with my captures as well!! at least the color ones. And I agree on the film. So much more "processing" with digital that I don't much care for. With the film, it was a no brainer, run 40 minutes, Have the slides developed and scanned to a disk for me, tweak the contrast, resize and post. Nothing to it. But the color can be so much more accurate with digital and images more detailed if done at higher image scales which always was a challenge with film.

Good tracking too for that image scale.

Kevin
http://astronomy.darkhorizons.org