M81 galaxy group (Victor Van Puyenbroeck)

M81 galaxy group

The different revisions of this image are meant to show how my image acquisition and processing improved over time.

The M81 galaxy group in the constellation Ursa Major contains 34 galaxies and is located close to our own Local galaxy group. Two prominent members are Bode's Nebula (M81) and the Cigar galaxy (M82), popular targets for amateur astronomers due to their relatively large size and brightness (source: Wikipedia). How many galaxies can you count? (I can spot 10 galaxies in the full resolution picture)

Original description May 4, 2016:

My shots are normally limited to the southern inner city sky. This was taken during my first night out in a suburban area, where I aimed my telescope at the northern sky for the first time. Even used my polar scope for the first time. I'm pretty happy that these objects are visible with my simple setup, and under heavy light pollution. However, the images lack color after color correction, which is unfortunate. I should probably change my workflow to bring out the galaxy color.

Acquisition details:

Scope: Orion ST-80

Camera: Canon 450D

Mount: Skywatcher EQ5 Pro

Frames: 20x30" ISO1600, 11x60" ISO1600

Flats: 20

Bias: 72

Revision B: I still had 20 extra 30 second subs from the same night laying around and learned how I could add these to my DSS stack (also added bias frames). Then I used a new workflow in Startools to bring out more color and correct the lens aberrations.

Revision C: Cropped the frame from rev. B to match the rule of thirds

Revision D: Post-processed for the first time in PixInsight.

NEW DATA acquisition on January 21, 2017

Revision E: We had a couple of nights without clouds, so I revisited this target with my new scope and quadrupled the integration time. Still learning how to use all the tools PixInsight has to offer. Probably pushed the data too far, the background is really noisy.

D

Description: Original dataset reprocessed with PixInsight

Uploaded: ...

E

Description: Complete revision with new telescope and more integration time

Uploaded: ...

F

Description: Entire frame reprocessed with less aggressive stretch.

Uploaded: ...

G

Description: Added HDRmultiscaleTransform and increased the saturation

Uploaded: ...

Imaged with APT
Beginners AP
Cloudy Nights
Astrophotographers of Belgium

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Status	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	1388543
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

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M81 galaxy group

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