First Attempt At M81 & M82

[daemon]

Hi All,

Here is my first attempt at Bode's Galaxy (M81), with M82 in there also. Just my second "proper" astrophoto!

This was taken from south coast UK on the nice and clear Easter weekend. I was really struggling with my guiding (still getting to grips with PHD2) and so I only managed 3 subs at 180 seconds each. But the tracking seemed not bad thanks to a decent polar alignment. I stacked these few shots in DSS and made some minor adjustments in Darktable and GIMP. I know the colour isn't great - maybe my colour blindness doesn't help! ? - so I'd really appreciate any comments on how to adjust the settings better. Unfortunately I had no time for darks/flats/bias, but will try to do better next time.

Anyway, this was taken with my Nikon D5300 DSLR through a SW150PDS sat on a SW-EQ6R-Pro mount.

Cheers & clear skies,

Daemon Steve

  

[TonyGut]

Great picture Daemon Steve, im just starting out myself and its inspired me!

[daemon]

Thanks Tony! Good luck on the journey! It's sometimes a frustrating one, but well worth it! ?

 

[Demonperformer]

Certainly no worse than some of my early efforts.

Clearly very noisy, but calibration frames and more data will improve that dramatically. I always found darks with a DSLR to be a right pain, and the longer the sub the harder is was to get them to match. Do you have a copy of this book?

[alan potts]

I think Demon above sums up rather well, don't worry I am struggling with everything after much longer than you, more data will help no end. No idea what to do about the colour blindness, guess it depends between which colours. A very good start though.

Again mentioned by the Demon who is very good at this, I am just at the start of guiding and I am noticing going from 2/3 minute subs and DARKS, to 4minutes is causing many noisy issues that are not there on the shorter subs, same scope same night, I'm dropping back to 150secs.

Alan

[daemon]

Thanks Demon and Alan!

Yes, I have copies of both Steve Richard's books - very useful!

I think my main issue is getting enough time under clear skies. I'm working away from home at the moment, so limited to one or two night's at the weekends currently. What with setup/pack-up time and weather issues, imaging time is a challenge. Anyway, thanks for the tips and I'll definitely take those comments on board. Cheers!