M37

Here's an image (LRGB) I took of M81. Each exposure was 60 secs. Procesing done in Maxim DL. Same equipment as the M37 image.



Just to add some notes:
The whole experience can be as basic or complex as you wish. If you simply want to take a short image in B/W, it can do that. The images are usually pretty good coming off the camera and so some people may be satisfied with that.
For me, I wanted to learn as much from this as I could. With that in mind, the website has tutorial videos broken into two groups:
1) Taking the images
The images can be taken as single mono images or as a series of images through various filters (LRGB for example). The chip size is 1024x1024. Images here have been reduced in size by 50%.
2) Processing the images.
Processing these images is very different to how I used to process my own images from the 300d. First, the videos demonstrate the use of Maxim Dl, of which I only got a demo copy recently. The cameras are also extremely sensitive. All images are in FITS format. Blooming etc can occur.
By following the tutorial video clips, one can learn an awful alot of how to process images via Maxim Dl. Fo me, it's a whole learning curve, for which the above results I have linked to probably don't do the observatory justice as I've alot still to learn. Hopefully, with the experience I gain in all this, I will hopefully improve my skills in image processing and astrophotography in general.
Overall, I would strongly recommend this experience to anyone who's interested in learning more on image processing.

Clear skies,

I should add that I also used Neat Image to soften/redue the noise in the second image, hence the stars don't quite look as sharp as they did in the first image.

Great image,
for a second I thought you got it with the LX90 and 300D :shock: :lol:

Ha! I wish!

Another image I took this morning with the same setup as before.
Image is of M51: The Whirlpol Galaxy



Clear skies,

lovely image Michael, they really are beauties