M101 Close In

[tomato]

Here is just over 6 hrs integration on The Pinwheel Galaxy taken with the Esprit 150/ASI 178 dual rig. I aim to get another 6 hrs in on this subject to try and assess the optimum integration time on this type of target with the existing set up.

It was calibrated, and aligned and stacked in APP and processed in StarTools V1.6. Ivo has added a lot of new features and an enhanced help and support feature since my original purchase of this software, so I need to get my head around it all as well as try and get full use out of my PI 45 day trial. No excuse really with the imminent total lockdown...

Thanks for looking.

 

 

[DaveS]

WOW!

Only 6 hours on a target of notably low surface brightness, or is that 6 hour per camera? In either case it's amazing.

[bob-c]

Great image.

Bob.

[Laurin Dave]

Nice start, as @DaveS says somewhat low surface brightness so it really needs a lot of time..  20plus hours perhaps, but it’s worth it

[tomato]

 

16 minutes ago, Laurin Dave said:

Nice start, as @DaveS says somewhat low surface brightness so it really needs a lot of time..  20plus hours perhaps, but it’s worth it

Hmm, I posted the image from my processing laptop and it didn’t look too bad but it looks a lot noisier and washed out on the iPad screen. It does look like I need at least two more  6 hour sessions.

[DaveS]

I'm  looking at it on a 4k wide gamut calibrated monitor and although it's noisy (Bound to be with only 6 hours data) there's loads of detail there. I've certainly seen worse from 6 hours data.

[John Nodding]

Wow! 👍🏻

[tomato]

20 hours ago, DaveS said:

WOW!

Only 6 hours on a target of notably low surface brightness, or is that 6 hour per camera? In either case it's amazing.

Thanks, it’s 3 hours lum and 1 hour each RGB. 6” refractors certainly help.

 

7 hours ago, DaveS said:

I'm  looking at it on a 4k wide gamut calibrated monitor and although it's noisy (Bound to be with only 6 hours data) there's loads of detail there. I've certainly seen worse from 6 hours data.

I’ll press on and add at least another 6 hrs to this and see how it goes.

[DaveS]

Looking forward to seeing the result.

[Paul73]

6 more hours!!!! 
Awesome image as it is!

Thanks for posting.

Paul

[jager945]

Looking great!

I would highly recommend software-binning your dataset, as the image at its full size is very much oversampled.

Once you've binned and converted the "useless" resolution into a better signal at a lower resolution, you push the dataset more and noise should also be much less apparent.

Clear skies & stay healthy,

[Astroblagger]

Fantastic image, my 4 hour attempt at M101 cetainly didnt look like that. superb image. 

[JeremyS]

Lovely image @tomato

[tomato]

As promised here is another 6 hrs of data, making 12 in total, this time processed in APP and GIMP. Will hopefully put another 6 hrs on while this fine weather holds...