M101 13.75 hours

[cuivenion]

Hi, This is M101 imaged over four nights in the past week. I've had some collimation woes and it was a bit windy some nights but I'm happy with it.

Mount: Skywatcher HEQ5

Scope: Skywatcher 130PDS

Imaging Camera: ZWO ASI224

Guiding: Altair GPCAM colour with finderguider

Software: Sharpcap 3.2, PHD2, Pixinsight

837 x 1 minute light frames, Darks and Flats.

Hope you like it. Any constructive criticism welcome and comments welcome.

Edit:

Here is a final version, turns out I wasn't masking very well when using noise reduction, and I was using to much of it:

 

Edited March 30, 2020 by cuivenion

[Star101]

Very nice image.

Personally, as an experiment, I would try to sharpen it a little with deconvolution or similar to see if it improves a little. But to be honest, it's good enough as is and be careful, you might ruin it by processing more.

 

Dave,

[cuivenion]

Thanks Dave, I did use deconvolution and that sharpened it a little bit. I did try HDR multiscale transform in Pixinsight but I just couldnt get a result I liked with it.

[Whistlin Bob]

That's a smashing result out of the ASI224. If you're using Pixinsight, you might try the multiscale function and just out say 0.1 bias in layer three or something- just very subtle to lift the detail a little- but really it's a lovely image and I really like the colours.

[cuivenion]

Cheers Bob, I'll give that a go, I think that might work.