Fireworks Galaxy LRGB - QHY Polemaster & Canon 550D

[Jannis]

The dark season in Norway is officially over, there is no longer any "astro" dark time during the night. Still, with no moon and a couple of hours with more or less dark skies, i though i might as well give it a go, and it turned out much better then i had though indeed!

This is another round with LRGB, where the RGB data was captured with the 550D right before sunrise, and the L data was captured with the QHY Polemaster camera. I've changed my approach a little this time though.
Previously I've gone for gain 30 and 60 sec exposure, but seeing as my tracking and seeing were rather poor this night i went for gain 100 and only 15 sec exposures. This resulted in a noticeable sharper end image. 
I wanted minimal data wasted, so i made 2 stacks. One with 50% best frames, and one with 95% best frames. The 95% best frames image was then only applied for the background to reduce the noise.

L data is 605x 15 sec at gain 100 + calibration frames (222x dark, 250x flat, and 500x bias)
I only managed to capture 12x 180 sec RGB exposures before the sky got washed out, but any color is better then no color.

Total exposure is 3 hours 7 minutes.

 

[Jannis]

Received some feedback that i had been a bit too careful with the processing, so made a v2 with darker background, a bit more noise reduction and stronger sharpening. Still not sure which one i like best...

 

[Star101]

I like that

Some great detail there and not over processed at all for my liking. 

A great image.

Thanks for sharing.

[Jannis]

Thanks!

Managed to capture 4 hours 22 minutes of Ha data yesterday and gave it a try to add it. My first HaLRGB galaxy, so this is new territory for me. Not sure how it looks? 
Did some more work on the stars too, as v2 LRGB made most of the smaller stars too bright, pinpoint, and color-less.

 

[Jannis]

Double post, sorry.

[Rodd]

Nice image scale--that is one BIG galaxy.  I think i like #1 over #2--not sure which one you added the Ha to, but that one came out well.  The Ha regions are well defined.

Rodd

[PatrickGilliland]

Nice work, don't often say this but less Ha may be a nicer balance.  I like it though

[Jannis]

Thanks

Also thank you for the feedback on the Ha. Being my first HaLRGB galaxy i think i went a bit overboard with it