M101 - Was this thing born looking fuzzy?

[Erling G-P]

Not sure if I should post here or continue in the beginners section - compared to the old hands here, I'm still very much a beginner, but here goes

Always find this galaxy looking quite fuzzy, in my own and most other images I've seen of it.  Despite the modded camera, I find it hard to get the Ha to show as pink, without going overboard with the saturation, but at least it's hinted at in this version.

Yanking my hair over whether to use Topaz Denoise AI or not. Have had very good results with it on other images, where it seems really good at reducing the noise while preserving details.  Here however, while reducing the grain, it also smears some of the finer details in the outer arms, so I've decided to go without it - anything that makes this fuzzy fella look more fuzzy is probably best avoided.

71 x 3 minute subs = 213 minutes total, or 2.55 hours integration time

SW 200PDS w/SW 0.9x CC

SW HEQ5Pro w/Rowan belt mod & ADM saddle

Canon 700Da cooled (-20ºC)

Staraid Revolution autoguider

Bortle 4 sky

Darks, flats & bias used

Stacked with DSS.  Processed in AstroArt 6.0.

[MarkAR]

Looks great to me.

[Erling G-P]

Thanks Mark, and thanks for the likes!

[alan potts]

I think that looks very nice, one i want to try .

Alan