M81 and M82

I managed to capture a nice shot of Bode's Nebula and the Cigar Galaxy last weekend (with a nearly full moon from Oakland, CA). Thought I would share it.

40 minutes of luminosity (five minute subexposures) and 15 minutes each of RG&B (five minute subs).
Losmandy GM-8 mount, FLT-110 APO (TEC), and SBIG STL-11000M camera with Astrodon "I" series filters
Image was self-guided. Seeing conditions were good--7/10, and transparency was poor (despite the clear skies--it's pretty light polluted!) with a NELM of around 3.8. Image was captured using Equinox Image. Calibration was in Maxim DL, and post processing was in Photoshop CS2. I was pleased to be able to see Holmberg IX in the image! What do you guys and gals think?

Attached Image:

Beautiful shot Jared! 8)

Sweet shot!

Good job!

I think it looks great Jared,especially considering the conditions you captured it in.

It looks to have a bit of a Blue cast to it but that could be the monitor i'm on right now.

Nicely done!

Jason

That is a nice shot Jared, good color, detail and framing.

Nice job! If I had the patience and the equipment, I would be proud of duplicating what you did.

I like what I see, Jared! I want to see a full-scale crop of the galaxies!

Eric

You got a lot of detail considering there was so much moonlight. Moonlight makes color balancing a chore, however. Looks like you have too much blue, and not enough green, in the color balance.

Another tip for color balancing moon-lit images: always remove color bias (different black points) in the color channels first, THEN attempt actual color balancing.