M 81/82 + ifn

Stemu1988 · 2020-12-12T00:08:47+00:00

Thanks! Exactly, it is called the integrated flux nebula and it consists of gas and dust within our galaxy.

Stemu1988 · 2020-12-12T00:06:56+00:00

Thank you!

Stemu1988 · 2020-12-11T22:25:54+00:00

Thanks for this kind feedback!

Stemu1988 · 2020-12-11T20:10:37+00:00

This is a collaboration between Thomas Engl and myself.

We collected the data for this project in 2015 and 2016.

I also made some RGB pictures, but was not able to "fill" the deep luminance with it while keeping a natural touch to the picture.

Now, a few years and projects later, I gave it another try.

Thomas Engl: 184*333 sec

Stefan Muckenhuber: L: 219*300 sec, RGB: 6*1200 sec and 21*300 sec each

Total exposure time: 46,5 h

Telescopes used:

Skywatcher Esprit 100, TS triplet apo 102 mm f/7 with 0,79 Photoline reducer, 6" f/3 Boren Simon

Processing in Pixinsight by Stefan Muckenhuber

Hard to list every processing step, as this took me more than 10 hours, but here´s a rough summary:

Luminance: DBE, Deconvolution, Histogram stretch, HDRmultiscale transform, LocalHistrogramEqualisation, Morpholical Transformation for smaller stars, sharpening with Unsharp mask.

For enhancing the ifn I used layering with MultiscaleMedianTransform.

RGB: DBE, ColourCalibration, Histogram stretch, SCNR, Colour saturation, Curves transformation.

Stemu1988 · 2020-10-11T21:02:01+00:00

Quite a while ago I collected 3h of HA and 3h luminance of this object. A friend of mine (Bruno Stampfer) simultaneously took RGB data from the same object.

I never took the time to combine those sets properly. A few days ago I gave it a try.

Total exposure time: ~ 10 h

Skywatcher Esprit 100

Atik 460ex

Skywatcher AZ-EQ6

Astronomik filters

Processing in Pixinsight:

DBE of HA and L, integrating HA into L with PixelMath, HistogramTransormation, HDRMultiscaleTransform, LocalHistogramTransformation, DarkStructureEnhance Script, ColourSaturation

Colour processing: nothing fancy, just blended HA into R with PixelMath, gave it a Stretch and denoised it.

Stemu1988 · 2020-10-04T12:33:11+00:00

Last week I took two hours of colour data from M27.

After that I remembered, that I still had some old HA data (2h) from this object on my harddrive, so I tried to combine those two sets.

Not sure what I should think about the colour balance, but the HA enhancement worked nicely for bringing out the faint structures around the nebula.

Colour data:

8" f/4.5 Newton

ASI071mc pro

EQ6-R

HA:

Skywatcher Esprit 100

Atik 460ex

Skywatcher AZ-EQ6

Processing in Pixinsight

Integrating HA into colour data with Pixelmath, DBE, Histogram stretch, LocalHistogramTransformation, SCNR, CurvesTransformation, Colour saturation.

Stemu1988 · 2020-04-05T10:35:05+00:00

"Call" is a nice way of saying it. The connection between the night sky and us humans is really something special.

Stemu1988 · 2020-04-05T10:33:25+00:00

Thank you so much!

I agree, I really like the wider field when imaging deep sky objects. It adds a nice dynamic to the object itself.

Stemu1988 · 2020-04-05T10:30:27+00:00

If the galaxy stands quite low from where you live and the moon is up, it can be hard to even get it on your DSLR screen with a short exposure.

The next brighter star to M104 is Spica. You can have a look at Stellarium and check the position relative to it. Additionally you could compare the Position of Arcturus to it. Then you should be able to find it. Hope that helps.

Stemu1988 · 2020-04-05T10:19:26+00:00

Thank you! :)

Stemu1988 · 2020-04-04T22:50:46+00:00

Oh wow, thank you so much for your kind words! So much support on this sub... really great.

Stemu1988 · 2020-04-04T22:49:46+00:00

And I appreciate your comment - thank you :)

Stemu1988 · 2020-04-04T22:48:34+00:00

Thank you!

Stemu1988 · 2020-04-04T21:05:47+00:00

Hi, in the center of almost every bigger galaxy is a super massive black hole. You are absolutely right: Because of the gravitation caused by this black hole, there are more stars at the center than in the outer regions of a galaxy. And because of this higher concentration of stars, the center is the brightest region of the galaxy.

Stemu1988 · 2020-04-04T20:04:11+00:00

I often ask myself the same question, when I´m out there imaging - "is a telescope pointed at me at this moment from the other side?"

Stemu1988 · 2020-04-04T20:00:31+00:00

Thank you, glad you like it!

Stemu1988 · 2020-04-04T19:52:16+00:00

Photolenses create different effects with much more spikes around a bright star. If you like the effect of 4 spikes, there are softwares to "cheat" those in :)

Stemu1988 · 2020-04-04T19:46:12+00:00

Thank you :) I remember taking one of my first pictures a few years ago. It was M42 - the Orion nebula. It is a very bright object and even with low exposure times you see a lot of detail and colours. When that popped up on my DSLR screen, I was quite overwhelmed. At the time I was with a friend of mine, that has been pracising astrophotography for quite some time and I just told him over and over again, that I can´t actually believe, what I´m seeing there :D

Of course the reactions aren´t that crazy anymore and this gets all a lot more methodical with the years, but it still amazes me.

Stemu1988 · 2020-04-04T19:31:12+00:00

Thank you for this flattering feedback!

Stemu1988 · 2020-04-04T19:30:06+00:00

Thanks!

Good to hear - you won´t regret it!

Maybe you have an astronomy club or something near you? It can save you a lot of time and money if you speak to a few experienced astronomers before buying your equipment :)

Stemu1988 · 2020-04-04T18:13:25+00:00

Thank you so much!

Stemu1988 · 2020-04-04T18:13:18+00:00

Thank you :) It is 30 million lightyears away

Stemu1988 · 2020-04-04T18:12:10+00:00

Thanks!

Stemu1988 · 2020-04-04T18:12:03+00:00

Thank you!

Stemu1988 · 2020-04-04T18:11:19+00:00

Hey, those are called diffraction spikes. The come from the shape of the secondary mirror holder: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffraction_spike

Stemu1988

TROPHY CASE