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M51 Good enough to post??

Started by eric718, 04/09/2002 04:39PM
Posted 04/09/2002 04:39PM Opening Post
All:
This is the first image I have done that I think looks good enough to post. This was taken by a 10" F4.5 Newt on a Losmandy G11. I took 5 - 6 minute exposures and averaged them through AstroArt. I reduced using dark and flat field only. I also ran an unsharp mask on the final image.
Please be brutally honest on how I can improve this through processing. I have no idea what each filter does so any suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks!
Eric Weller


Attached Image:

eric718's attachment for post 136
Posted 04/09/2002 07:35PM #1
Hi Eric,

That looks a nice image. To make it even better I would look at some kind of non-linear streching.

One other thing, I think you unsharp mast may have been a little harsh as you appear to have dark rings around the brighter stars.

What image processing software do you have?

Cheers,

Maurice

* Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a day.
* Teach a man to use the internet and he won't bother you for weeks.
Posted 04/09/2002 09:12PM #2
I think that this is a very good image, there are a few things that you might do to make it better. You might try some sort of "digital development" routine on it or a deconvolution procedure such as in AIP4Win. This might bring out some more of the information contained in the spiral arms. Perhaps one single exposure instead of combined exposures? Is your location dark enough to go 20 or 30 minutes? If so try it. this of course assumes that you mount can track that well for that long, also assumes that you have a pretty good polar alignment. Might also consider a coma corrector such as the one from Lumicon (there are others out there as well). What a camera are you using?

Mike