M51 in L(RHa)GB

This project turned out to my biggest to date. I took the 4.5 hours of Ha that I posted on 3/25 and added 3 hours of L and 1.75 hours each of RGB to create this image. This is the first time I've added narrowband data to RGB and chose to average the Ha with the R channel.

12.75 hours of L(RHa)GB with 31.75:4.5):1.75:1.75 hours per channel.
SV105
QSI516ws
G11

Comments and suggestions welcomed! How does the color and background sky look on your monitor?

Thanks for looking.

-Eric

Attached Image:

Hi Eric,

Lots of time in on this one!
It's looking good too with the HII regions showing up nicely.

Maybe just a bit too smooth in the background areas.

Nice work,

Jason

Hi Eric, it's looking good. I think the red is a bit strong and the blue is a bit weak. (But heck I need to calibrate my monitor probably.)

Eric,
The image is nice. I agree with Jason on the smoothing - but that really only comes out on my monitor at high gamma. The Ha exposures really seem to highlight the star forming.

It does appear on my monitor as if the red is strong. Possibly the saturation may be a bit high as well.

Jim, Mike, and Jason, thanks for the comments, they are much appreciated. With all the Ha data collected, I've already scaled the red way back but I agree, there is still too much.

I'll tweak some "knobs" and repost. :-)

-Eric