The data of M81 and M82 had been sitting on my hard drive for months now. Finally I got around to editing them, but free time with a little kid has become rare
Both galaxies are so rich in detail that I want to show them individually.
My version of M81 was taken over six nights from mid to late April 2022 with the OSC camera ASI2600MC Pro under a Bortle 4-5 sky. To the approximately 20 hours of RGB data another 13 hours of duo narrowband filter data (L-eXtreme filter) were added.
Processing was a bit more complicated than usual. The main goal was to get as much detail and contrast out of the galaxies as possible. Besides that, all information in the background (faint galaxies, including the companion galaxy "Holmberg IX" = UGC 5336 and the galactic cirrus) should be preserved, so there was hardly any noise reduction here. I prefer a noisier image over one that is too smooth.
The many small dots in the galaxy are already bright single stars as well as numerous star clusters and Ha structures. Check out the full resolution for maximum details
The faintest objects in the image reach about 23.8 to 24.0 mag according to ALADIN.
Image processing with Siril (stack, stretch), Astro Pixel Processor (remove light pollution / gradient before stretching), StarNet++ V2, Photoshop CC (CameraRAW module).
Any comment or question is welcome, English or German!
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