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Howdie folks,
So.... following Rob's
lead, here goes: I have been putzing around with color information via a CCD
instead of film... guess what? Noise is still enemy #1. So the same rules apply
here that apply to film... shoot lots of images and average. I gathered up all
the bits and pieces that I had on M-51 and did all the "reduction" process on
them... this is the same as cleaning up photo images by getting rid of
vignetting, dust spots, etc etc etc.
Then these files, all in 16 bit
info, were imported into Registar to average and merge into a 16 bit RGB. By
combining the RGB before any curves or post processing was done, the color
balance as dictated by the filters and exposure times should be pretty much
"locked in."
Then I took the file into
PS and gently applied curves and some level corrections for the black end point
to compress the data. I applied a slight amount of saturation to the image.
Basically that's it. What I got, I think, is a pretty close approximation of the
true colors of M-51 since this is "pure" RGB... no L, no nothing. Note that the
little galaxy at the bottom is very blue... active star formation or something,
and there is an interesting blue arm from the main galaxy near the companion...
in color you can see from this that M-51 is probably in front of the companion
which is a different color... in the 200" image you can see this as a string of
material from the main galaxy but it is in B&W.
Tony
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