M81 Galaxy Image

This M81 image was actually taken in April 2013, just processed it in March 2014.

Taken on my Altair Astro 8″ RC Telescope on an EQ6 mount. Used my Atik 314L+ CCD camera and took LRGB frames with exposures of 5 minutes each. The scope had a x0.67 reducer fitted.

The focus could have been sharper, but at the time I had not really trained my FocusMax profile for this telescope very well.

Click on the image to see the full size version:

Harvest Full Moon

Decided to try and image the full harvest moon the other night. When the moon is so bright there is not much else you can image other than doing some Hydrogen Alpha imaging.

I decided to use my new Skywatcher 120ED DS Pro. It was taken with a William Optics 0.8 reducer, through an OIII filter and with my Atik 314L+ camera.

The moon was so bright I actually used a zero second exposure in Maxim DL. I took 20 frames and then stacked them in Maxim DL and then imported the image into FITS Liberator and performed a stretch. Then into Photoshop CS5 in order to manipulate the curves, levels and to add an Unsharp Mask.