My first M82 and M51 captures

[Menno555]

Totally new to all of this. Have some experience with a small Newton 10 years ago but this with camera and all is new.
I really am just wandering around the sky at the moment, like a big kid trying to look at everything in 1 night. Will grow up soon enough

In the night of 26 to 27 April I captured M51 five times during the night, each time with different settings and different amount of frames. On average 15 frames of 15 seconds each. After stacking in DeepSkyStacker I processed each stack in Photoshop and then did merge the 5 processed stacks. With this result

M82 was a more structured approach: 52 frames, 21.4 seconds. Gain 264.
Used DeepSkyStacker for stacking. Made 2 different versions: there is a setting which alters the RGB processing (or something like that?). One setting gave a very green/orange stack, the other a very blue/red stack.
So saved them both and after processing in PS, I merged them together

I do now that the Meade OTA is not really made for this, being it f/10 but I always like to experiment. A good 0.62x reducer is coming though.

Meade LX65 8" f/10 ACF OTA
Ioptron CEM25P mount
Zwo ASI385MC camera
Baader IR/UV Cut Filter
No guiding

M82


M51

[turfpit]

That is a good start - I think your previous experience is still in there somewhere. In Deep Sky Stacker, once you have the stack, try Save Picture to File but make no adjustments. Finish off in PS.

The f/10 scope will come into its own with your lunar imaging.

Dave