M51 - Whirpool galaxy... I'm not proud of this photo

[supple brook]

Data was captured over two nights, almost exactly 100 minutes integration, tried to do denoising since I'm having big problems with the huge bright lamp that's right in front of my telescope, causing reflections and ruining my photos, even with a comically large "dew shield"...

Acquisition:
Lights:
107 x 30" iso 800 (Night 1, had camera issues so I couldn't go further than half a minute)
46 x 60" iso 400 (Night 2)
Darks:
104 x 40" iso 800
Biases:
100 x 1/4000" iso 800
Flats:
101 x 1/40" iso 400
No computer or NINA, just the in-built camera "timelapse shot" as an intervalometer, also means no dithering

Equipment:
Mount: SkyWatcher EQ6R
Telescope: SkyWatcher R80/400 (f/5)
Camera: Unmodified Panasonic Lumix GX-85 (4/3 sensor)
Guiding: none

Processing:
SiriL 1.2.3 (stacking, calibration, stretching, etc.)
GraXpert 3.0.2 (denoise and final touchups)

[plush sundial]

Hey dude, don't say you are not proud. I'm sure you'll get there and with every minute of doing astrophotography you will get better and find fixes. And then step by step you'll get amazing results! So heads up

[supple brook]

Thanks

[trim sleet]

good start, do some dithering every 3 photos and you should be good to go. This is walking noise that only can be removed by dithering

[wheat valley]

he cant dither as he stated, but its a good starting image

[raw shard]

Don’t worry mate this was one of my first pictures of the whirlpool and as you can see yours is a lot better

[raw shard]

If you send me the stack I could try processing it for you so you could see a bit more

[supple brook]

Right now I can’t, but I’ll send you the file in like up to an hour, probably less. I’ll put it on #1021002743080558642

[supple brook]

Here you go https://discord.com/channels/794642864218439681/1279407521718603776

[zenith hare]

Can i see the dew shield used

[supple brook]

How did you find this post thats pretty old now? Btw here’s the image:

I know it’s supposed to be black but I wasn’t expecting the light to cause problems so I had to figure something out on the spot, and at the time, it’s was the only thing I could use.

Though now I have a pretty black foam thing that I already made into an even longer but also thicker and darker dew shield, though I haven’t really had the chance to use it.

(I forgot that during the night I upgraded it to this)

(But it still didn’t work properly lol)

[zenith hare]

that is indeed comically long 🤣

[supple brook]

And yet it still doesn’t do its job right. Just like other looong things, if you know what I me- gets banned by mods