Magnificent, Patrick! In response to your question, you need to mask and burn etc., to show the core details as well as the faint arms. But in a way that's cheating. It's like a photo at night with a car's bright headlights shining at the photographer: you can print the negative to show the general scene, people on the sidewalk, with washed-out blazing headlights or you can darken the whole scene and show the headlights as sharp round orbs and the people hardly visible. But to show both you have to manipulate the image, "burning in" the headlights with the enlarger or PhotoShop. That results in an unnatural view of the scene. You shouldn't have it both ways. I feel somewhat the same way about manipulating astrophotos. The center is magnitudes brighter than the arms and a photo that in effect dims the center isn't a true report. -- Joe ________________________________ From: Patrick Wiggins <paw@wirelessbeehive.com> To: utah astronomy utah astronomy listserve <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Wed, March 24, 2010 4:02:38 AM Subject: [Utah-astronomy] M-82 I was between data taking projects tonight so I refocused the scope for the warmer temps that may finally be arriving. Once finished I shot five 30" test images of M-82 and stacked them. http://users.wirelessbeehive.com/~paw/temp/M82.JPG I'm satisfied with the focus and I like the spiral arms and the detail near the core but wish I knew how to keep the core itself from burning out. patrick _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Visit the Photo Gallery: http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php Visit the Wiki: http://www.utahastronomy.com