M78 et al. Reprocessed

A couple of experienced imagers noted that my image was clipped too much (sky too dark). The histogram indicates that they were indeed correct. I did not know what this region should look like so I inadvertently threw away luminosity that I had mistaken for noise! I am learning, slowly but surely.

The reprocessed image and the original are at
http://home.att.net/~dpersyk/new.htm

I welcome comments from everyone as to your impressions of the before/after images. Thanks for looking.

Clear skies,

Dennis Persyk
Igloo Observatory Home Page http://dpersyk.home.att.net
Hampshire, IL

Great shots Dennis, and nice processing...
Indeed, we never stop learning...


Clear skies!


Ivan

Dennis,

That was an excellent shot of M78 in any case. M78 is a difficult target being primarily a reflection nebula (a lot of light around the blue region of the spectrum) with many subtle details in and around the dark lanes. You did a good job of capturing it. If you had not made good shots to begin with, you would have never been able to recover the histogram as you had.

I have just started using Russell Croman’s MaximDL plug-in tools (especially the Sigma Combine tool) and have found them especially helpful with subjects having subtle details in the fringe ranges of the histogram (I have been having a lot of fun working on M101 in this fashion). I don’t know if you are using MaximDL, but if you are and haven’t tried these out, you might want to, if just to experiment.

Great job!

David