Here's my attempt at M81 M82. My Canon 600D field of view is too narrow to fit in both galaxies so I decided to capture the pair in two halves and merge them. I managed 10 x 240 second @ 800iso subs on M81 on the 18th June with 5 x Darks and 20 x Flats. Then 10 x 240 second @ 800iso on M82 on the 21st June with 5 x Darks and 20 x Flats. Both data sets were a bit shy with only 40 minutes each for quite faint targets. So on the 25th June I managed another 10 x 240 second shots of both targets with a set of Darks and Flats.
I stacked all of the 4 sets in
DSS (just one frame lost to RBE (Ruined By Elon!)). Then I pulled the four stacked files into
Gimp to stretch the curves and levels and pump up the colour and saturation. Two pairs back into
DSS to stack together to give two images for stitching in MS ICE. That was an epic fail! ICE wasn't able to find a match. So, back to
Gimp to do some clever copy and pasting.
It's a bit over processed, the red is too low, the green is too high and you can see the join but it was a learning experience!
Regards
Graeme
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Celestron 9.25 f10 SCT, f6.3FR, CGX mount.
ASI1600MM Pro, ASI294MC Pro, ASI224MC
ZWO EFW, ZWO OAG, ASI220MM Mini.
APM 11x70 ED APO Binoculars.
https://www.averywayobservatory.co.uk/