Reprocess of M51 spiral galaxy [Robotic, T7 Nerpio, ESP]

I was never very happy with my original image - my noise reduction resulted in black pits in background space and the colours were faint.

 

In PixInsight, I have gone back and used a lot more Multiscale Median Transform with a low contrast luminosity mask, working on both background chrominance and luminance noise then using a combination of MLT sharpening and noise reduction on the highlights.

 

I used the Colour Saturation process twice with a luminosity mask on the unstretched image and the Curves Transformation process on the stretched image (again with luminosity mask) to boost colour.

 

Using a lot more masking than I used to - doing the same thing with other sorts of photography as well.

 

 

Taken with iTelescope T7 from Nerpio in Spain.

 

25x10min x3 RGB

 

The larger Messier 51 is interacting gravitationally with smaller NGC 5195.

 

A rich spiral pattern of dark dust clouds reaches deep into the galactic core where a Seyfert 2 active galactic nucleus is located - a dust ring obscures the central accretion disk and supermassive black hole from view.

 

A small edge on spiral galaxy IC 4277 is seen beneath NGC 5195.

Done