help with M82 please

[sgazer]

hi,

I had a good stab at M82 on Friday, taking 23 subs of 5mins each, Mod'd Canon 1000d, CLS filter, C80-ED, auto-guided on HEQ5. I focused using the bahtinov mask and checked it using liveview without the mask. I took darks and flats and processed in DSS and Photoshop. However, my result is noisy, lacking in colour (the nice blues and browns) and lacking in detail, particularly when compared with this one by Uranium325, which is only 15x3min subs-

http://stargazerslounge.com/imaging-deep-sky/101979-first-light-w-1000d-m81-m3.html. Mine doesn't have any where near the same number of stars coming through either.

So, where am I going wrong? Is it just that my frac is F7.5 vs F5 of the 150p? I have tried this target with a C8 SCT at f6.3 too, but still haven't acheived this level of detail. Could the CLS filter be taking away too much, perhaps the Skywatcher LP filter would be better?

I've also attached a cropped TIF from straight after stacking.

Thanks for any help.

ps. Uranium325 if you read this, I'd love to know your secret!!

bodes avg 23 subs cropped after stack.tif

[Glider]

Interesting. I was imaging the same from the Midlands that night and gave up. I usually get a really good image on M82 no problem but this time I can only assume there was high thin cloud or ash about. My image was, diffuse, washed out, lacking in colour. At one point I began to think that the camera had packed up.

[sgazer]

Thanks Glider, yes interesting indeed. Perhaps it was the seeing conditions then. This is the first time I've done more than about 9 subs on M82, I was hoping for so much more. I think the length of the subs and quantity should have made up for a relatively slow scope.

[Glider]

I usually shoot 2 or 3 minute subs on M82, but that night I got up to 6 minutes and still wasn't feeling I was half way there.

[sgazer]

sounds bad! I've managed to squeeze this out of it in the end, it wasn't helping that I'd set the dark multiplication factor in DSS and forgot to turn it off. That improved the noise a little.