M81 - Bodes Nebula(e) - first attempt

[Alveprinsen]

So, I had a few hours with clear skies tonight, although it seems LP and/or fog has increased severely this year...

Thought I'd give it a shot at the two nebulae. Unfortunately, I find that knowing the camera framing of the image when using a newtonian is utterly confusing compared with a refractor - in which case I'd just rotate the camera to acomodate. Not being able to see my target in liveview I didnt want to bother with rotating the camera, making an exposure, rotating again... so... Here's the result after a really quick stretch and edit in Photoshop, PixInsight and Lightroom:

Note however that I have had to crop out the image... This galaxy was placed rather high up in the frame of my original image as I was hoping to get that little one as well... Which is obviously did not. With a 1000mm FL this galaxy as a bit small anyway, so the detail is unfortunately not as sharp as I would have wanted.

Still, was nice to do a galaxy again...

Camera: Modded and cooled Canon EOS 600D

Mount: NEQ6 Pro

Guiding: Orion Starshoot Autoguider through a 50mm finderscope.

ISO: 800

Exposures: 60 x 300s (total 5h)

Calibration frames: Bias and flats, no darks.

Chip temp: -19 C

sincerely, Alveprinsen.

[Alveprinsen]

Another try this evening. About 6 hours worth. Same settings, -24 C. About 5 hours...

I am quite a bit more happy about this one.

Sincerely, Alveprinsen.

[MattJenko]

Have you tried combining the data from both nights?

[Alveprinsen]

Have you tried combining the data from both nights?

No. The galaxy is placed further "up" in the image in the images from my previous session. I would most likely need to do some serious cropping... I might just do it though, to see the difference. Or perhaps I just need to up the exposures to get the faint stuff... Too bad longer exposures gets all washed out.