Help with M81 :(

[samir_ansari]

Hi everyone - this is one of my first serious attempts at deep sky imaging but I think the LP in London is just too bad to be able to get anything decent. This is what my 3min sub of m81 looks like WITH a baader LP filter:

and this is the best I could get after processing, cropping and rotating the image 90 degrees CCW. Is it possible the grain is coming from the fact that these are JPEG subs and not RAW, does it really make this much difference?:

I think I need to move out to the country.

Would anyone fancy a go at the sub to see if it's just me being rubbish at processing?

Thanks for your help!

Samir

[Carl M]

I think using RAW mode does make quite a lot of difference in the long run. Try taking more subs and if you havent already done, take darks aswell. This should bring out more detail once you have stacked in DSS. For a 3min sub thats still a good image.

Carl

[samir_ansari]

Thanks Carl

Actually I should have mentioned this was 20 images at 3mins and 10 darks at the same length - is 10 a bit too low?

[Carl M]

I think 10 darks is ok with 20 subs. It could be that the files were jpegs which results in picture quality loss because the camera compresses the picture to make it use less space. RAW pictures contain everything that the camera sees when taking the exposure without compressing the file.

P.S im a nubby to this stuff so hopefully a pro imager can help you

[samir_ansari]

I've just tried processing this again and here is my latest. I've been less heavy handed with the crop this time so as to not get too close to that horrible grain: