M81 & M82 - 17 hours DSLR

[Betelgeuze]

Fellow Stargazers,

I haven't posted here for a long time since I usually use german or austrian platforms to publish my images.

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

Sharpened Luminance crop:

[stem1989]

simply stunning detail, love the sharpened luminance version also, looks amazing.

[alan potts]

Well done absolutely superb!!

Thank you for posting.

Alan.

[laser_jock99]

Quality images- thanks for sharing.

[Stargazer33]

Absolutely amazing!

[Csharmy]

wow amazing!

[Gina]

Excellent And such dedication - nearly 17 hours imaging time - WOW

[r3i]

That's impressive. A great result for the large amount of effort you put in to get 17 hours worth of data.

[Tom OD]

Excellent pic, well done/

[Tinker1947]

Really nice, well done....

[harry page]

Hi

Very nice , in fact excellent

Harry

[Betelgeuze]

Hi Harry!

Thanks for your compliment! Your Tutorials got me into PixInsight about 8 months ago

Cheers,

Simon

[WaveSoarer]

Exquisite images.

[ollypenrice]

Very well done. I'm not a DSLR fan but this is a serious piece of work and very well processed.

Bravo, a great job.

Olly

[harry page]

Hi Harry!

Thanks for your compliment! Your Tutorials got me into PixInsight about 8 months ago

Cheers,

Simon

No probs

Harry

[Steve 1962]

Just lovely Simon - well done and thanks for sharing

[andyboy1970]

Top image well done, rewarded for your dedication.

[Daniel-K]

wooo that is mega!

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

magnificent detail. great stuff!

[iksose7]

Superb image!

[StuartJPP]

Very impressive.

[Ewan]

Inspired me to have a go at these but at 60 seconds a sub i will be a while reaching 17 hours.

Great images

[Komet]

Excellent images. Very well done.

[Black Knight]

Excellent images indeed, especially for a DSLR. Great stuff!

[sologuitarist61]

Beautiful images!