M81 & M82 with IFN (Dan)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Ursa Major (UMa) · Contains: 22 UMa · 24 UMa) · 24 d UMa · 27 UMa · Bode's Galaxy · Cigar Galaxy · Coddington's Nebula · HD77833 · HD78633 · HD79315 · HD80365 · HD80532 · HD81936 · HD82171 · HD82327 · HD82602 · HD82685 · HD82992 · HD83126 · HD83186 · HD83489 · HD83838 · HD85142 · HD85161 · HD85533 · HD85631 · HD85828 · HD85841 · HD85893 · HD86559 · And 49 more.

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M81 & M82 with IFN

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M81 & M82 with IFN

After over one whole year without producing a single astro image, I managed to put this together from a trip to rural West Virginia in February 2022. The skies there were incredible but there were some real challenges. For one, I am still a novice to LRGB imaging (I live in severe light pollution so almost all my imaging has been narrowband). I made the mistake of capturing one channel at a time (so, all red, then all green, etc.), which resulted in severe color fringing due to changes in atmospheric distortion throughout the night as the target rose and fell. To make up for this I essentially had to kill my star color, as you can see. The conditions at the site were also challenging. The second night had extreme wind gusts so I moved the setup to the balcony of the cabin. This blocked the wind but I foolishly placed it too close to the railing and the lens collided with the railing late in the night. I was too tired at that point to go through polar alignment again so I called it quits. As a result I got very little blue and green data and skimped on the luminance.

Processing this is kind of tough. I wanted to get the IFN while also preserving the detail in the galaxies. I'm disappointed at this point with how white the entire image looks. I might continue to revisit it but I figured I'd post it after sitting on the data for months.

Details:
Rokinon 135 at f/2 (Nikon F)
ASI294MM (1x1 binning)
Astronomik LRGB filters
Rainbow Astro RST-135 with RT90C tripod
William Optics UniGuide 50 guide scope
ASI290 mini guide camera

Lum: 85 mins (60s each)
Red: 100 mins (120s each)
Green: 36 mins (120s each)
Blue: 20 mins (120s each)

Captured with SGP, processed in PixInsight

Original
Final
B

Cloudy Nights

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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.

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	7861989
PixInsight job	NOVEBK29UKHD28VMTC238W4LO7HOYXOP
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	09h54m29s.36
RA (top/left)	10h49m18s.38
RA (top/right)	09h35m29s.37
RA (bottom/right)	08h56m17s.75
RA (bottom/left)	10h06m24s.90

Dec (center)	+69°36′20″.1
Dec (top/left)	+68°22′54″.2
Dec (top/right)	+74°26′28″.0
Dec (bottom/right)	+69°40′13″.6
Dec (bottom/left)	+64°41′14″.4

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M81 & M82 with IFN

M81 & M82 with IFN

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M81 & M82 with IFN

M81 & M82 with IFN

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