M81 and M82 HaLRGB (Kyle Goodwin)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Ursa Major (UMa) · Contains: Bode's Galaxy · Cigar Galaxy · HD85161 · M 81 · M 82 · NGC 3031 · NGC 3034

Powered byPixInsight

M81 and M82 HaLRGB

Powered byPixInsight

M81 and M82 HaLRGB

I was very unhappy with this image initially for the same reasons generally as my previously posted Iris image, since it was taken over the same nights as the second target after Iris was too low to image. Even worse, one of the nights I did not collect any data for this project at all since the clouding out that affected my Iris image unexpectedly terminated my imaging session before the data collection for this project even began that night. So there's no denying the data in this image is sub-optimal. Since I'm considerably more comfortable processing galaxies rather than dark nebulae, however, I was able to do a better job with this image than the Iris one. I'm pretty happy with the level of detail I was able to get in M81 given the seeing, transparency, and image scale. I've tried to use Pixinsight's HDRMultiscaleTransformation several times before and never had much success as it always seemed to be way too strong, so I've normally relied on masked LocalHistogramEqualization to bring out galaxy details. This time, however, I fiddled around until I was able to make HDRMultiscaleTransformation and I think the result is pretty interesting. I'm not as happy with how M82 came out, but it's a harder target at this image scale and could benefit from more data and better processing. I'm going to try M82 as one of my early targets in my new SCA260 setup soon.

The refractors!
CMOS Imagers
Cloudy Nights
Suburban Astrophotography
Light Polluted skies

Please note: The following tables are updated every 24 hours.

Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	5310510
PixInsight job	WK0SBQGSWZ0E2L1KANLW2R0VCYPFQWPS
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	09h55m59s.13
RA (top/left)	09h47m53s.64
RA (top/right)	09h57m13s.50
RA (bottom/right)	10h04m02s.40
RA (bottom/left)	09h54m40s.92

Dec (center)	+69°18′17″.6
Dec (top/left)	+69°22′16″.7
Dec (top/right)	+68°35′43″.2
Dec (bottom/right)	+69°12′52″.5
Dec (bottom/left)	+70°00′46″.1

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

M81 and M82 HaLRGB

M81 and M82 HaLRGB

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Sky plot

Histogram

In these public groups

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

M81 and M82 HaLRGB

M81 and M82 HaLRGB

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Sky plot

Histogram

In these public groups

Notifications

AstroBin is in READ ONLY mode

Sorry :-(

Sorry :-(

Sorry :-(

Are you really sure?

Warning!

Warning!

Are you sure?

Report abuse

Slideshow settings

IOTD/TP stats (last [x] days)

Distribution of astrophotographers

Distribution of subject types

Distribution of data sources

Sorry

Sorry

Share

Upload new revision

Upload uncompressed source (XISF/FITS/PSD/TIFF)

Delete image and all its revisions?

Delete original image?

Delete all other versions?

Delete all revisions?

IOTD/TP stats

The following people like this image

The following people bookmarked this image

Warning

Flag malfunctioning thumbnails

Contains

Remove yourself as a collaborator

Plate-solving information