My first ever capture of the integrated flux nebula (IFN) in the direction of North Celestial Pole!!
I switched out my 533 mono cam and have started using a 2600MC-P, largely for the widefield because weather is severely curtailing imaging time. Thankfully, it seems the camera didn't let me down. In general, as well, I don't want just a galaxy smack bang in the centre occupying most of the frame, so I think I like this offset perspective too.
Luckily had a clear night all night yesterday, so managed to get about 6h on M81 (was imaging IC405 earlier), of which this is:
- 3h10m of 5min RGB subs without any filter
- 1h10m of 5 min subs with the IDAS NBZ filter, from which I used the red channel for Ha and combined using Bill Blanshan's excellent HaRGB Combination script (mode=1, Strength=1.3)
Maybe I can stretch more but the dust and background started looking artificially separated so I've left the histogram as it is.
Given this was my first time processing interstellar dust, I am going to collect probably 6-8h more of data and will refine my processing, so a second version of the image is definitely coming as soon as weather permits.
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