Don't beat yourself up, David. Saturated colors in astronomical images are all fake. We try to approach what the various objects might look like if they were actually bright enough to trigger the color receptors in our eyes, but all deep-sky astronomical images are really just art, when it comes right down to it. An article in S&T some years ago (and even a "Sky-Wise" cartoon by Jay Ryan) demonstrated that even if we were much closer to these galaxies than we are, they would look about like the Milky Way looks to the naked eye from a dark site. Impressive, yes, but not tinted blue and red. Even if we were immersed in the Orion Nebula, the brightest parts would appear as a colorless, grey vapor instead of the red we are used to in photographs, or are on the verge of detecting visually in large aperture scopes. The colors are thanks to our insturmentation. The challenge in astro-imaging is to pursue ever smaller star images- crisp, tight focus. Diffraction-limited imagery. The colors are just what pleases the eye. This one does match what we are used to seeing much more closely. Keep up the good work! On Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 6:52 PM, David Rankin <David@rankinstudio.com> wrote:
I didn't realize how bad the processing on my M51 shot was until I got home. I started over on a real monitor, and here is the new result. I had way over saturated the reds before.
http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=2718&g2_imageViewsIndex=1