Poor stacked results

[malc-c]

OK I think I can now put this thread to bed. I still have to perfect the taking of flats and sort out a white balance problem (probably due to using the CLS LP clip filter), but I now understand the process better and I'm pleased that most of my issues with previous images have been overcome with this example.

So here it is... my final (well for now) image of M81.

Around 70 x 300s subs at 800 ISO, 40 darks 15 lights and a few bias's too !

All stacked in DSS, then the resulting Tiff cropped in PS to get a file that can be uploaded to the forum.

Please bear in mind that this was taken from the center of Stevenage. I'm sure under some nice dark skies I wouldn't need 6 hrs worth of data to get similar results.

As I've said in the above post, I had a good teacher and would like to thank Andy for all the help and for giving up his time to teach me the ropes - :icon_salut:

[AndyUK]

(No worries Malc! I've had enough people on here help me in the past - It was nice to be able to try and give something back!)

That's a LOT better ! ... And I'm sure you're right that in a site with less LP, you'd find things much easier. I'm trying to get up the courage to "go mobile" myself, but I'm obviously just not ready yet. I look foward to seeing your next object

[swag72]

There is a massive improvement between these images. Can I ask if you changed any of your DSS settings between the first and last stack that you did?

[malc-c]

No difference in settings between stacking runs. I think the fact there was two hours more data made all the difference.

[swag72]

Cheers Malcolm.