M81 on Friday 13th

[MarkS]

This is my second attempt at M81 - better than my first I think (http://forum.orpington-astronomy.org.uk/index.php?topic=4232.0)

44x5min.  Modified Canon EOS350D on Celestron C11 with F6.3 focal reducer and CLS filter. 2x2 binned in software and cropped.

Main differences:
1) A slightly smaller reducer to focal plane distance has reduced the amount of coma.  It's still not quite right - I'm waiting for some adjuster rings to be delivered.
2) The seeing was better - this has increased the sharpness slightly
3) It was a few degrees colder, so less thermal noise.
4) I shot 44 frames instead of 30



Full size here: http://gallery.orpington-astronomy.org.uk/albums/userpics/10046/m81_130109.jpg

I really want to do this (yet again!) but this time somewhere dark e.g. DSC.  Let's hope the weather obliges.

Mark

[RobertM]

Looks very good to me Mark, an excellent processing job too.  As you say a DSC outing would help a lot with the contrast and hence also the core.

[Mike]

Very nice Mark.

[Fay]

Lovely Mark. I would not have thought of doing this with DSLR.

I did 1x480 of Rosette thursday,  with Canon, but that was it.   Extremely good sky if the clouds hadn't kept appearing. Really a lot of vignetting with 0.6 fr & ED80.

[Mac]

very nice.

[JohnP]

Mark - That is a fantastic result - you have also got a hint of UGC 5336 (directly at 6pm position below m81 on edge of frame) - This is also known as Holmberg_IX.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holmberg_IX

Look forward to seeing you add more from a dark site.

John

[Whitters]

Nice one Mark.