M81 and M82

[halli]

Recent attempt at M81 and  M82

12 x12 min subs with 130PDS processed with DSS, PI and Canon DPP @ 200 ISO

[bingevader]

Splendid!

[toftm]

Wow!

[Astrosurf]

Very good.

Alexxx

[halli]

Thanks guys for your encouraging comments

[robbie c]

That is a beauty well done 

[toxic]

nice image there Halli well done

[redmoo]

Very nice! This is my next target. Have tried a few other nights, but think that my alignment is off (always end up getting random stars).

However, it seems that the clouds just don't want to go away!

[Stargazer33]

Well done, you have got a nice image there!

[ollypenrice]

Yes indeed, well done. 

I think you have clipped out quite a bit of your faint data, something which is easy to do. Don't go from this:

To this:

Olly

[halli]

Thanks for all your comments

Olly - Take your point.  I have looked back at the processing stages and I can see that some of the previous images may have had more data.  

I use pixinsight to do the majority of processing and am careful not to lose data from the histogram during stretching. However I find that the resulting image suffers from background noise defects which are difficult to get rid of.  I am assuming this is due to light pollution and the use of a DSLR.   I then save the image to Canon Digital Photo Proffessional suite and create a HDR image.  This provides greater contrast and camouflages the noisy background -  I think it is at this stage that some of the data gets lost at the expense of solving some of the background problems.    

I would like to use a CCD under dark skies to understand whats really possible without a lot of processing !

I have attached the output from the Pixinsight stage  and the HDR stage for comparison

I'd be interested in people's views about the comparison between them and which they prefer.

[kalasinman]

I like the PI output better.

[Astrosurf]

Ditto. The HDR one is far too harsh. I would slightly increase contrast on the PI one, but that's just me!

[Chris]

Nice for such a low ISO, I've never gone below 800.