M101

[The Thing]

Re-did the collimation and shimmed the edge of the primary to stop it sliding sideways up to 2mm. The filter is a clip filter, I 3d printed a filter drawer for it but forgot to make sure it was oriented to align with the CMOS (it's not round). Duh. So chopped the ends off the stacked image. If the galaxy is a little overprocessed I blame it on the -far too easy to use- Clarity tool in Serif Affinity, but it does reveal all the details Big version is better.

205x120s =410m= 6.8hr, Gain 1600, Offset 30, Temp -5C.

Click for large version.

[Carole]

Not an easy target.  Apart from the slightly overprocessed aspect you mention it looks pretty good to me, and I like the colour.

Carole

[ApophisAstros]

DItto,
Roger

[The Thing]

About this object on Wikipedia.

Completely new data. This is how i hope my images will look from now on. Lights 92x120s = 3h 4m, 10x darks, 10x darkflats, 10x flats and correct use of the cameras overscan area. I changed my flats light source to a grey matt reflective surface in the observatory and that seems to have balanced the colours better and made a better flat at 45% saturated ADU.

I'll do a write up on the overscan stuff as it may be useful as any camera with an IMX294 CMOS really requires it to cope with variable bias values according to QHY. Its been quite a learning curve due t the lack of info generally available.

92x120s = 3h 4m, Gain 1600, Offset 30, Temp -5C
Image date, time and location:   2022-05-05, Manche, France
Telescope aperture and focal ratio: TS1506UNC 6" f4, TS GPU Coma Correktor
Camera and filters used: QHY294PROC, Astronomic UV/IR
Processing applied: PixInsight only - SCNR_PCC_ABE_EZdcnEZdnEZss_HT_CS which is gobblegook unless you use Pixinsight!

Click image for a full scale slightly cropped version

[Carole]

Much, much better Duncan, nice coloured stars and showing the outer arms better.  Will substitute on the Members images.

Carole

[Hugh]

Thanks for the Wicki link Duncan.

An improved image and really liked the enhanced star field background!

- Hugh

[ApophisAstros]

Like.
Roger

[MarkS]

Looks good Duncan!

The colours are great and for some reason the first image is showing more of the faint background arms.

Mark