M81 and M82 reprocess

[Stevec35]

This is a reprocess of a shot I took a few months back using Dean Salman's telescope in Arizona. I went back to scratch and came up with something much better I think. There is a lot of flux nebula in this area and I caught some of it but I think more exposure would have shown it better.

Anyway I hope you like it.

Cheers

Steve

http://members.pcug.org.au/~stevec/m81_m82_Maknewt_QSI.htm

[RickS]

Very nice, Steve!

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Stunning Steve!!

How long did you spend processing to come up with this result?

Cheers,

Justin.

[Martin Pugh]

Steve
a good effort indeed, but I do find both galaxies to be oversmoothed and Holmberg IX is barely visible. You did catch some of the IFN though.

cheers
Martin

[Stevec35]

Thanks Martin. Fair comment - I guess I overdid the noise reduction. For some reason the data was very noisy and I had gradients to contend with too. Don't know where the gradients came from given that the scope is out in the Arizona desert. BTW do you think 5 hours is enough Ha to blend in for a galaxy? Eventually I got Chris Schur's method to work but it took a lot of juggling to get a reasonable looking result.



Thanks Justin. Far too long. I eventually got sick of it.



Thanks Rick

[Ross G]

A beautiful galaxy photo Steve.

Nice composition.

Ross.

[Stevec35]

Thanks Ross. Both galaxies just fit nicely in the field of that scope.

[SkyViking]

Nice catch Steve, these two are too far north from where I am, I don't have a good view in that direction unfortunately. But good to see you were able to bag them. The HII is really strong, provides for a nice contrast.

[Stevec35]

Thanks Rolf. This was taken in Arizona of course. Given that my maximum theoretical horizon is +55 they would be impossible from Canberra.

[SkyViking]

Ah yeah of course, now I remember these are North of the Big Dipper - not a chance from down here :)