My 1st go at M101 The Pinwheel Galaxy

[PembrokeSteve]

Hi,

Inspired by Forum Member Xiga, after seeing his fine image of M101 on 22 March 2019, I just couldn't wait to get an image of the Pinwheel Galaxy. 
My image was taken on 27/03/2019 with my Orion ED80 Refractor and Canon 450D, on my NEQ6Pro mount.
( As usual, at present, my images don't have enough hours put into them yet, because I am still figuring out how to plate-solve with APT !
Once I get plate-solving under my belt, I will start to get more data, hours wise, into my images ).
My image below is approx 1 hours worth of light subs, composed of a mixture of mainly 70 sec lights, including some 60 sec lights and 40 sec lights, all at 1600ASA.
I also incorporated 20 darks , 35 bias frames and 35 flat frames.
Processed through APP and then GIMP.
Regards,

Steve

[banjaxed]

Fantastic.

[GiorgioF]

Hello Steve. Nice picture after all.... But you are right saying it need more integration.

I'm telling this because,like you,I faced the same problem. My place is in a city suburb,very light polluted and with a very small garden. Moreover my view of the sky is just a small slice :from meridian up to 45 degree to west.

So,I must do all my shot in shift of 2 hours or less, in different night,with all the difficult you can image.

APT offer a nice feature called "framing mask". You load or shoot a picture and create a kind of mask putting small circle on bright stars. You can then save it and recall when you need. No need a perfect alignment as one stacked the pictures you can crop them a little cutting the black edges.

You can find the framing mask feature under the "tool" tab.

On,BTW, I have a similar setup as yours but the mount is just a poor eq5