My first attempt as Galxies (M81 and M82)

[Adam J]

M81 and M82, 12 x 400s, Canon 1000D Modified, Bias and Flats, Astronomic CLS Clip, MPCC MK3, 130PDS, PS CS2 + Gradient Exterminator. Took hours mucking about processing this, only ever done nebula and a couple of clusters before, this seemed much harder to get a pleasing result.

[Adam J]

Clearly I did not read my title back to myself before posting this lol..

[Waldemar]

Very nice job!!

[rwilkey]

Lucky you are a better photographer, well done!

[Astrosurf]

Very nice! Lots of detail there.

Do try to avoid blowing out the stars and galaxy cores. It's very easy to do when squeezing out the faint detail! I lock the white point when using Curves and only use the left and middle sliders on Levels. Plus I do a little jiggery-pokery with selecting the stars and cores with the Magic Wand tool a few times while gently stretching. let me know if you want to know what I do. It's pretty rough and ready and I'm sure others will have better techniques There is also a star mask but I've never got on with them.

Alexxx

[The Admiral]

If I can follow Astrosurf's post with a question please? Would you expect to saturate the pixels of a DSLR when imaging these DSOs using a 400s sub, or is it the result of post-processing? I ask because as a user of an Alt-Az mount I could never get anything like that sub-length (say 30s), but even so I'm suspicious that I have blown out the stars.

Ian

[Adam J]

Made a few adjustments, not sure if I actually made it any better mind you.

47 minutes ago, The Admiral said:

If I can follow Astrosurf's post with a question please? Would you expect to saturate the pixels of a DSLR when imaging these DSOs using a 400s sub, or is it the result of post-processing? I ask because as a user of an Alt-Az mount I could never get anything like that sub-length (say 30s), but even so I'm suspicious that I have blown out the stars.

Ian

Ian, I have also included the unprocessed image (saved as a jpg) to give you an idea of saturation prior to processing.