NGC 4826 / M 64 Black Eye Galaxy / 17 million light years in Coma Berenices

            In order to advance beyond a somewhat colorless result arising from using a combination of an OSC camera and a broad band LPF, the integrated image was first separated into starless and stars only components, followed by splitting the starless image into its RGB components which were individually weighted and then recombined using LRGB Combination followed by further processing.

Scope: WO Zenith Star 81mm f/6.9 with WO 6AIII Flattener/Focal Reducer x0.8

OSC Camera: ZWO ASI 2600 MC Pro at 100 Gain and 50 Offset

Mount: iOptron GEM28-EC

Guider: ZWO Off-Axis Guider

Guide Camera: ZWO ASI 174mm mini

Light Pollution Filter: Chroma LoGlow Broadband LPF

Date: 30-31 March 2023 and 2-5 April 2023

Location: Washington D.C.

Exposure: 244x300s subs (= 20.3 hours)

Software: Pixinsight

Processing Steps:

Preprocessing: FITS data > Image Calibration > Cosmetic Correction > Subframe Selector > Debayer > Select Reference Star and Star Align > Image Integration.

Linear Postprocessing: Integrated image > Rotation > Dynamic Crop > Dynamic Background Extractor (subtraction to remove light pollution gradients and division for flat field corrections) > Background Neutralization > Color Calibration > Blur Xterminator > Noise Xterminator.

Nonlinear Postprocessing: Linear postprocessed image > Histogram Transformation > Star Xterminator to separate into Starless and Stars Only images.

Starless image > Histogram Transformation > Noise Xterminator > Local Histogram Equalization > Split RGB Channels > Weight the original channels and use Pixel Math to generate new modified RGB channels.

Apply HDR Multiscale Transform to the L channel (= R channel for broad band image) and the new modified RGB channels.

LRGB combination > LRGB image.

LRGB image > Curves Transformation using color masks > Histogram Transformation (multiple steps as needed) > Local Histogram Equalization (multiple steps as needed) > Final Starless image. 

Pixel Math to combine the Final Starless Image and the new Stars Only image > Rejoined image.

Rejoined image > Dark Structure Enhancement > New rejoined image.

New rejoined image > Topaz AI > AI image.

Pixel Math to combine New rejoined image and AI image > Final result.

Taken on: July 22, 2023

Tags:

ngc4826

m64

black eye galaxy

sleeping beauty galaxy

evil eye galaxy

messier object « less

Sets appears in: • Astrophotos

Groups appears in: • Astronomy • Messier Objects more » • Washington,DC Photographers • Backyard Astronomy • Backyard Astrophotography • Amateur Astro-Photography « less

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