Semi-widefield M81 (Steve Lantz)

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

Powered byPixInsight

Semi-widefield M81

Revision title: New workflow utilizing new software.

Powered byPixInsight

Semi-widefield M81

Revision title: New workflow utilizing new software.

Looking to find more variable stars to measure and maybe capture a decent shot of a galaxy, I removed the focal reducer from the 4 inch William Optics refractor and took a crack at M81. I had made an attempt to bundle the cables, but that actually caused problems. It was so cold out (about 5 degrees F) that the cable bundles were really stiff and actually messed with the tracking accuracy. I resorted to going with 120 s images and took about 40 bias, 20 dark and 30 flats for calibration. I stacked 40 calibrated images for an integration time of 80 minutes. The field didn't turn up any interesting variables (zero variables, in fact), so I did my best to simply process the image of M81 and will move on to another target in the next observing run.

Original
Final
K

K

Title: New workflow utilizing new software.

Description: Stefano Ciapetti let me know about Astroart, an image processing platform that I now have acquired. I used it and Photoshop to make another revision of M81; the improvement was so dramatic that I had to post it. To get the red of the star forming regions from H alpha emissions, I pulled out only the highlights of the original red channel and added those back to the original to bring out the brightest places.

Uploaded: ...

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	n/a
PixInsight job	58JFFQEEZFUVVOC4CYVAK0U2GH6E9OO5
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	09h54m37s.52
RA (top/left)	09h45m07s.97
RA (top/right)	09h56m58s.91
RA (bottom/right)	10h04m00s.98
RA (bottom/left)	09h52m05s.94

Dec (center)	+68°59′20″.0
Dec (top/left)	+69°07′06″.3
Dec (top/right)	+68°09′27″.3
Dec (bottom/right)	+68°49′47″.1
Dec (bottom/left)	+69°49′08″.10

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

Semi-widefield M81

Revision title: New workflow utilizing new software.

Semi-widefield M81

Revision title: New workflow utilizing new software.

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Revisions

K

Sky plot

Histogram

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

Semi-widefield M81

Revision title: New workflow utilizing new software.

Semi-widefield M81

Revision title: New workflow utilizing new software.

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Revisions

K

Sky plot

Histogram

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?

Delete this revision?

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