ASTRO: M95

M95,
30 x 90 sec
not as bright as i want it to be but it shows that the core consist of 3 parts..strange never saw that in any pictures,
was it my setup that caused this?
Any idears how to preserve this detail and let the arms come out more?

10"SCT
No autoguiding
Homebuild CCD camera.
Humidity was very high (70-80%) my kendrick was at full power to keep the lens clean..
Some MAximDL used and CS2.

Thx for looking
Dirk
Netherlands.

D van den H wrote:

M95,
30 x 90 sec
not as bright as i want it to be but it shows that the core consist of 3
parts..strange never saw that in any pictures,
was it my setup that caused this?
Any idears how to preserve this detail and let the arms come out more?

10"SCT
No autoguiding
Homebuild CCD camera.
Humidity was very high (70-80%) my kendrick was at full power to keep
the lens clean..
Some MAximDL used and CS2.

Thx for looking
Dirk
Netherlands.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's real. I just chanced my power supply and ran 2 hours of battery to
see if I could reprocess my M95 image. The original as posted showed
only a burned out core trying to get the outer arms to show. I had
severe frost when it was taken (on the front of camera's optical window)
due to -35C outside temperatures. Dew heater and shield kept the
corrector frost free but cooling the CCD put frost on the outside of
that window. Since posting it I'd picked up some new tools for dealing
with such problems and put them to work as well as taking care to not
blow out the core. Here's the result.

14" LX200R@F/10, L=9x5', RGB=3x5' all binned 2x2, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Rick

--
Correct domain name is arvig and it is net not com. Prefix is correct.
Third character is a zero rather than a capital "Oh".

Nice job! cool..
What tools did you use Rick?
reg
Dirk

"Rick Johnson" wrote in message
...


D van den H wrote:

M95,
30 x 90 sec
not as bright as i want it to be but it shows that the core consist of 3
parts..strange never saw that in any pictures,
was it my setup that caused this?
Any idears how to preserve this detail and let the arms come out more?

10"SCT
No autoguiding
Homebuild CCD camera.
Humidity was very high (70-80%) my kendrick was at full power to keep
the lens clean..
Some MAximDL used and CS2.

Thx for looking
Dirk
Netherlands.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's real. I just chanced my power supply and ran 2 hours of battery to
see if I could reprocess my M95 image. The original as posted showed
only a burned out core trying to get the outer arms to show. I had
severe frost when it was taken (on the front of camera's optical window)
due to -35C outside temperatures. Dew heater and shield kept the
corrector frost free but cooling the CCD put frost on the outside of
that window. Since posting it I'd picked up some new tools for dealing
with such problems and put them to work as well as taking care to not
blow out the core. Here's the result.

14" LX200R@F/10, L=9x5', RGB=3x5' all binned 2x2, STL-11000XM, Paramount
ME

Rick

--
Correct domain name is arvig and it is net not com. Prefix is correct.
Third character is a zero rather than a capital "Oh".

Rick Johnson wrote:



D van den H wrote:

M95,
30 x 90 sec
not as bright as i want it to be but it shows that the core consist of
3 parts..strange never saw that in any pictures,
was it my setup that caused this?
Any idears how to preserve this detail and let the arms come out more?

10"SCT
No autoguiding
Homebuild CCD camera.
Humidity was very high (70-80%) my kendrick was at full power to keep
the lens clean..
Some MAximDL used and CS2.

Thx for looking
Dirk
Netherlands.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's real. I just chanced my power supply and ran 2 hours of battery to
see if I could reprocess my M95 image. The original as posted showed
only a burned out core trying to get the outer arms to show. I had
severe frost when it was taken (on the front of camera's optical window)
due to -35C outside temperatures. Dew heater and shield kept the
corrector frost free but cooling the CCD put frost on the outside of
that window. Since posting it I'd picked up some new tools for dealing
with such problems and put them to work as well as taking care to not
blow out the core. Here's the result.

14" LX200R@F/10, L=9x5', RGB=3x5' all binned 2x2, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Rick


------------------------------------------------------------------------


Check out AOP's image from Kitt Peak. Their seeing is so much better
than I can get. http://www.noao.edu/outreach/aop/obs...5mcguiggan.jpg
Note it is a mirror image and rotated somewhat as well.

For processing I do virtually everything after calibrating and
combining, in Photoshop. In this case I moved the L image in without
any processing using FITs Liberator to import the FITS image. Then,
after flipping it so it wasn't an inverted mirror image (is this what
AOP didn't do?) I used curves to bring out the basic galaxy with the
arms faint but the core nearly burned out. I then selected just the
core with a small feather (about 7 I think) and used curves to bring the
core down again so the detail appeared. I then inverted the selection
and enhanced the arms to where they showed up out of the noise. I used
a deep space noise reduction action as well as gradient and color blotch
removal actions to get rid of my frost problem and quiet the background
from all the harsh processing. While what I did is likely second nature
to those photoshop experts out there I don't understand enough to do
this on my own so bought a package called Astronomy Tools for Photoshop,
they make an Elements version as well (since the tools use curves a lot
and there is no such tool in Elements I don't know how effective that
version is. Each is customized to the version of Photoshop or Elements
you have as the tools vary from edition to edition. I use the CS version
as that's what I have. Wasn't expensive $20 (over here anyway) and they
do help me. Knowing Photoshop would help even more I'm sure. The
experts are cringing at this I would imagine as one tool fits all isn't
a great solution but it's better than I can do without help as yet.
http://actions.home.att.net/Astronomy_Tools.html

Instructions are limited but after playing with it a while I started to
understand what did what. A couple tools seem to do nothing for me but
those that work are well worth the bucks for this novice Photoshop user.
Most are designed for color images after all other processing has been
done. I've had good luck with the tools that don't deal with color
issues with both color and black and white images however.

Just keep saving your result in case you make a mistake, going back can
be impossible depending on what you did after the mistaken action.

Rick

--
Correct domain name is arvig and it is net not com. Prefix is correct.
Third character is a zero rather than a capital "Oh".

In article ,
Rick Johnson wrote:

snip

Just keep saving your result in case you make a mistake, going back can
be impossible depending on what you did after the mistaken action.

There's always the History palette ...

--
Odysseus

Odysseus wrote:
In article ,
Rick Johnson wrote:

snip

Just keep saving your result in case you make a mistake, going back can
be impossible depending on what you did after the mistaken action.


There's always the History palette ...

Nope, sometimes it wipes it clean other times it's still here. Learned
that one the hard way.
Rick
--
Correct domain name is arvig and it is net not com. Prefix is correct.
Third character is a zero rather than a capital "Oh".

Nice picture Dirk. I remember George N. posting a version of M95 that also showed these three nuclei. They probably usually get lost when the image brightness is scaled for showing the fainter parts.
You could try DDP processing to show both at once or combining different versions of the photo as different layers in Photoshop.

Stefan

"D van den H" schrieb im Newsbeitrag el.net...
M95,
30 x 90 sec
not as bright as i want it to be but it shows that the core consist of 3 parts..strange never saw that in any pictures,
was it my setup that caused this?
Any idears how to preserve this detail and let the arms come out more?

10"SCT
No autoguiding
Homebuild CCD camera.
Humidity was very high (70-80%) my kendrick was at full power to keep the lens clean..
Some MAximDL used and CS2.

Thx for looking
Dirk
Netherlands.

Gone try that Stefan, clouds are rolling in now so up to processing!

reg
Dirk
"Stefan Lilge" wrote in message ...
Nice picture Dirk. I remember George N. posting a version of M95 that also showed these three nuclei. They probably usually get lost when the image brightness is scaled for showing the fainter parts.
You could try DDP processing to show both at once or combining different versions of the photo as different layers in Photoshop.

Stefan

"D van den H" schrieb im Newsbeitrag el.net...
M95,
30 x 90 sec
not as bright as i want it to be but it shows that the core consist of 3 parts..strange never saw that in any pictures,
was it my setup that caused this?
Any idears how to preserve this detail and let the arms come out more?

10"SCT
No autoguiding
Homebuild CCD camera.
Humidity was very high (70-80%) my kendrick was at full power to keep the lens clean..
Some MAximDL used and CS2.

Thx for looking
Dirk
Netherlands.

"Stefan Lilge" wrote ...
Nice picture Dirk. I remember George N. posting a version of M95 that also showed these three nuclei. They probably usually get lost when the image brightness is scaled for showing the fainter parts.
You could try DDP processing to show both at once or combining different versions of the photo as different layers in Photoshop.

Stefan

Stefan has a good memory!

Here's (http://www.kopernik.org/images/archive/m95.htm) my old ST-9 image (June 2002) that does show the odd nucleus of M95. The webpage has more info on it. DDP or similar stretch processing will show details like this at the expense of destroying the true brightness profile of the object.

George N