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M81

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Detlef Hartmann:
Hi,

after doing astrophotography for nearly 40 years and using PixInsight for more than 4 years, now I have finally the courage to post a recently shot image here.

It is the well known Bode's Galaxy M81.

The image was taken in March 2012 at the Emberger Alm / Kaernten / Austria.
I used my 25 years old Newton (d=443mm, f=2048mm) with a SBIG ST-10XME, CFW-9, AO-8.
The total exposure time was 5.3 hours (luminance 32x5 min. bin 1x1, red 8x5 min. bin 2x2, green 8x5 min. bin 2x2, blue 16x5 min. bin 2x2).
Processing was done with the CCDSoft-plugin Wodaski-Debloomer (only deblooming) and PixInsight 1.7.
The background intentionally isn't too dark to show up the small background-galaxys. The colors aren't too saturated, because I like the softer contrast. 

The image at full resolution is available via: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B00Jlg5VrA0WMW1NM1hzMVd4YUU
(you have to download it from google drive to view it at full resolution)

Constructive criticism welcome!

Detlef

chris_todd:
Good lord, all that practice and you've only just now shared?   ;)  That's awesome!  I hope it doesn't take me 40 years of practice to get that good...if it does, I should just quit now.   :laugh:

Seriously, though, that is a beautiful image with awesome resolution, and I like your processing.  May I assume your newtonian is equatorially mounted, or did you use a field rotator on a dobsonian mount (e.g., with tracking motors)?  I have an 18" dob and a single axis equatorial platform, but I don't have the guts (or the insanity) to try it for long exposure AP.

Detlef Hartmann:
Hi Chris,

I am using a heavy equatorial mount "Sideres 85" (R.A. 85 mm diameter of axis, declination 75 mm, Tracking with FS-2). The whole instrument weights 300 kg. The good resolution comes from the optical guiding with the AO-8. The seeing was between 2,0" and 2,5", but I have applied a severe RRL-Deconvolution. 

The processing of my images in the past was not very good, PixInsight-Processing requires a lot of training!

Detlef 

sreilly:
Beautiful image and very well processed.

Steve

Star Dog:
Looks beauteous! I won't be putting my M81 in the gallery now ...

Hopefully there will be less elapsed time until your next post  :)

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