Hi there,
My newest image showing M81 and M82 is different from all the others i took in the past, because I went for a really long exposure time. So the image below is a composition of 52 subs at 15min. and 11 subs at 20min. A DSLR can be a really powerful astrocamera if you are patient and consequent. We did not have clear skies most of the time so it took me almost 2 months to collect those photons. Then, about 2 weeks ago I started stacking and processing.
It was my intention to make this picture looking as natural as possible, while still having sharp and colorful objects in it. I developed my own little selective editing technique in PixInsight to mask out everything I don't need and only apply a specific process to a specific target.
Messier 81 is a Spiral Galaxy with a distance of over 12 million Lightyears, "containing" more than 250 billion stars. Messier 82 (or the cigar galaxy) is popular for its red Starburst-Regions, and was long believed to be an irregular galaxy. Recent observations in near Infrared indicated spiral arms which means it is probably a morphing barred Spiral Galaxy. It is torn apart by M81's gravitational pull.
Hope you like it!
Cheers,
Simon from Tyrol/Austria
Data:
52x15min.
11x20min.
ISO 200
Equipment:
10" f/4.5 Newton
Skywatcher NEQ-6
Canon EOS 500Da
Lacerta MGEN 2
Processing: Theli, PixInsight
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8107/8...6ac2eda4_k.jpg