M82 HaRGB from Kelling

[Carole]

I think I need better equipment to do this justice, but at least I managed to capture the Ha filaments which was the purpose of the exercise.

RGB 300 x 3 each binned x 2
Ha 1200 x 3
Skywatcher ED120 and Atik314L
NEQ6
Captured in Artemis, stacked in AA and processed in Registar and photoshop

[MarkS]

That is excellent.  You've captured those Ha filaments very well.  Overall, the image looks as if the seeing was the only limitation to further detail.

The only improvements I can suggest (apart from further luminance data to bring out more than just the galaxy core) are:
The background looks too black for my liking - so adjust the black clipping point
The larger stars are saturated disks.  If they are not burnt out in the subs then more sympathetic processing would improve their look.

Mark

[Carole]

Thanks Mark.

I should explain that I only used the RGB for the galaxy itself which was a bit burnt out in the Ha data, the sky is only the Ha data, so there is no colour to the stars and I think that was how they came out and of course this is a fairly big crop, I will however go back and take another look.  Yes luminance data might help, I didn't take any lum only RGB and Ha. 

I'll take a 2nd look from the point of view of the sky and stars.

Carole

[Carole]

Following feedback, a slight stretch to the background:

[MarkS]

Yes -that's better.

Mark