I am proud to show my first project after my EQ6-R tuning. I captured M81 & M82 one year ago... Since then, I changed a good chunk of my setup and learned a lot about processing - so I wanted to give it another try My goal was:

• a sharp image
• pretty HII-regions and filaments
• and to tweak out some IFN

Sharpness: It really helped that I finally had good guiding But some nights had pretty bad seeing. Therefore, I collected over 35 hours over a period of 3 month, and chose the sharpest 27 hours (based on seeing conditions) for the final integration. Note, that it's only taken with 800mm focal length. But the mono camera and some devolution helped a lot.
Halpha: M81's hydrogen areas were nicely possible with "RED-Ha continuum subtraction". But for M82's glowing hydrogen filaments it took some more effort. Additionally to "screening" the Ha-Signal, I also added a portion of "Ha-scaled-with-luminance-channel" to slightly highlight the fainter (less contrasted) parts of the filaments.
IFN: It was already challenging to not overexpose the cores during capturing... therefore, I just used 240s (with IMX571). But to not overexpose them during stretching was an even bigger challenge I manged to combine three different stretches in Photoshop (using the "apply image" method). Together with different levels of de-noising it turned out quite well. Another important aspect were the FLATS... the first sets of FLATS barely showed any IFN... I had to take them again (closer to the 50% goal) in order to make it visible. I guess I'll have to pay more attention to calibration frames in the future ^^
The following image gives a better view on the galaxy halos and the overall IFN:

M81 and M82 are two well-known galaxies located in the constellation Ursa Major, commonly known as the Big Dipper. They are often referred to as the Bode's Galaxy and Cigar Galaxy, respectively.
M81
M81, also known as NGC 3031, is a spiral galaxy located approximately 12 million light-years away from Earth. It has a diameter of about 90,000 light-years and contains an estimated 250 billion stars, making it slightly larger than our Milky Way galaxy. It has a central bulge surrounded by spiral arms that contain clusters of young stars, gas, and dust. The spiral arms are dotted with bright pink regions of star formation, called H II regions, where young, massive stars are ionizing the surrounding gas.
M82
M82, also known as NGC 3034, is a starburst galaxy located approximately 12 million light-years away from Earth, just a few degrees away from M81. It has a diameter of about 5,000 light-years and is classified as an irregular galaxy due to its distorted shape. M82 is also known as the Cigar Galaxy due to its elongated shape. It is undergoing a massive burst of star formation, with new stars being formed at a rate of about 10 times that of the Milky Way. The galaxy is also rich in gas and dust, which are being blown out of the galaxy by the intense radiation and stellar winds from the young stars.In addition to its starburst activity, M82 is also a source of intense radio emission, which is thought to be produced by synchrotron radiation from high-energy electrons accelerated by supernova remnants and other energetic phenomena.