Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Ursa Major (UMa)  ·  Contains:  Bode's nebulae  ·  M 81  ·  NGC 3031
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M81 - First Attempt / Test, Pat Darmody
M81 - First Attempt / Test
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M81 - First Attempt / Test

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
M81 - First Attempt / Test, Pat Darmody
M81 - First Attempt / Test
Powered byPixInsight

M81 - First Attempt / Test

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Description

This is my first attempt at a galaxy. I know it's not that great, but I wanted to see what I could do with bad sky/weather conditions. We have not had many astro-friendly nights in eastern Missouri lately. Guiding was done without binning and I noticed that I lost the guide star a couple of times (lost 2 of 10 frames). The moon was at first quarter (half full) and this washed out a lot of faint stars. High cirrus clouds moved in later, and I had to end my imaging session early because of the clouds.

The image is cropped because there was a lot of field rotation on the edges - was not much to see there anyway.

I think I will be able to do better with 2x2 binning on the Neximage 5. That makes it roughly equivalent to an Orion SSAG with regards to sensitivity. Hoping for clearer skies on a moonless night soon. Thanks for looking!

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M81 - First Attempt / Test, Pat Darmody