M51 / Arp85 in LRGB

[jjosefsen]

M51 / Arp85 - The Whirlpool Galaxy in LRGB

This beautiful pair of interacting galaxies was captured on two hazy nights at the end of February, pretty much the only cloudless nights in 1½-2 months!!

With sky conditions being quite bad, and shooting in the direction of the worst light polution in my area, the port of Esbjerg - I really didn't think it would turn out this well.

The 11.1 hours of total integration time surely helped to bring out the details of M51, and helped remedy both the LP and the sky conditions.

Captured through a Skywatcher Evostar 80ED with the Altair Astro Hypercam 183m v2 and Baader LRGB filters, riding on an EQ6.
Capture sessions were controlled by N.I.N.A. and processed mainly in PixInsight with finishing touches in Photoshop.

Uncompressed version:
https://www.astrobin.com/full/393566/B/?nc=jjosefsen

Please feel free to comment and critique, I am here to learn!
Personally I still can't get nice stars in my images, this one is no exception, they are bloated and overstretched.. I'm convinced the answer is in seperating the stars from the rest of the image.

 

[wimvb]

Very nice! The colour of ngc 5195 and the core of ngc 5194 are a bit too green/yellow, in my opinion. Try scnr green, this may correct that.

[jjosefsen]

2 hours ago, wimvb said:

Very nice! The colour of ngc 5195 and the core of ngc 5194 are a bit too green/yellow, in my opinion. Try scnr green, this may correct that.

Thank you Wim!

This seems a little better, it sort of depends what monitor I view it on. ?