M101 The Pinwheel Galaxy

[Jockinireland]

I seem to have great difficulty getting a good result on M101. It feels like it should be a relatively easy target - well placed for me, bright, nice contrast plenty of structure etc. But it just never seems to be that easy, for me at least.

This was a bit of an experiment using lower gain (gain 0, 120s) and a shorter exposure as I was having trouble with my background in the previous image. I'm not sure it made much difference overall. Its better than my previous M101's but still not where i'd like to get to with it.

This is 160 x 120s, with the SW Evostar 80ED on the NEQ6 and the ASI2600mc

C & C appreciated

full res can be viewed here

edited to provide rev with green cast removed.

[BABOafrica]

Somebody on this forum once said that M101 always needs more time -- no matter how much integration time you have already logged.

If you ask me, your 5+ hours for this image produced a good one. Lots of detail in there.

BABO

[Juno16]

That is a very fine rendition of M101 David!

I absolutely understand what you mean about capturing/processing M101. I really thought that I would have a better image my last time. It is my best so far and I like it, just not quite what I was hoping for (I really don't know what I was hoping for).
Like all deep sky targets, they can be processed in an infinite number of ways. In the end though it is what looks good to you and makes you happy. I know a lot of folks like super bright, colorful and sparkly images, but just me, I like more of a subtle look. More "natural" looking.

Your image is really quite nice! Wish that I could have gotten that nice of an M101 from my PI process. Maybe one day I will have the skills!

[MariusD69]

Wonderful image! Great job!!

[messier 111]

very nice capture, thx

[Jockinireland]

That is a very fine rendition of M101 David!

I absolutely understand what you mean about capturing/processing M101. I really thought that I would have a better image my last time. It is my best so far and I like it, just not quite what I was hoping for (I really don't know what I was hoping for).
Like all deep sky targets, they can be processed in an infinite number of ways. In the end though it is what looks good to you and makes you happy. I know a lot of folks like super bright, colorful and sparkly images, but just me, I like more of a subtle look. More "natural" looking.

Your image is really quite nice! Wish that I could have gotten that nice of an M101 from my PI process. Maybe one day I will have the skills!

Thanks for that Jim, Yes I think that the potential variation of final output from the same data set is both one of the joys and one of the difficulties of this hobby. you are always left with the feeling that one more repro could produce the killer image!

PI is really great but iIseem to have hit a bit of a speed bump with it right now as I am really struggling to get decent backgrounds. I started tryng masked stretch and EZ soft stretch and while they seemed to produce good initial stretches I found the backgrounds became really nasty as I moved on. So I've consciously gone back a couple of steps in my progress to try to regroup. I am seriously thinking about getting the Adam Block's tutorial set but I'm not sure I am ready (or able) to put the amount of time into it to justify the cost.

take care

David.

[Juno16]

That is a very fine rendition of M101 David!

I absolutely understand what you mean about capturing/processing M101. I really thought that I would have a better image my last time. It is my best so far and I like it, just not quite what I was hoping for (I really don't know what I was hoping for).
Like all deep sky targets, they can be processed in an infinite number of ways. In the end though it is what looks good to you and makes you happy. I know a lot of folks like super bright, colorful and sparkly images, but just me, I like more of a subtle look. More "natural" looking.

Your image is really quite nice! Wish that I could have gotten that nice of an M101 from my PI process. Maybe one day I will have the skills!

Thanks for that Jim, Yes I think that the potential variation of final output from the same data set is both one of the joys and one of the difficulties of this hobby. you are always left with the feeling that one more repro could produce the killer image!

PI is really great but iIseem to have hit a bit of a speed bump with it right now as I am really struggling to get decent backgrounds. I started tryng masked stretch and EZ soft stretch and while they seemed to produce good initial stretches I found the backgrounds became really nasty as I moved on. So I've consciously gone back a couple of steps in my progress to try to regroup. I am seriously thinking about getting the Adam Block's tutorial set but I'm not sure I am ready (or able) to put the amount of time into it to justify the cost.

take care

David.

I understand completely. I have also had issues with background. With and without EZ Softstretch. I usually get a much better background extraction with ABE rather than DBE also. Undoubtedly due to my lack of knowledge.
Also, most times my backgrounds have a good bit of color noise (somewhat splotchy). I can make an inverted star mask and somewhat clean the color noise up, but it seems like a messy way to go about it.

I am retired and still think that I would have some trouble putting in the time to go through Adam Block's series. I do think that I will try out the "FastTrack" training video. It is about 3 hours and it most certainly would help.

Processing is both fun and very frustrating to me. Collecting data is my most fun part of it right now. Especially since I started using N.I.N.A.

Even with the processing struggles, your images are really wonderful! Keep it up! Never ending learning!

[Gmetric]

Beautifully done, David.