M51 Whirlpool Galaxy (Harrington Beach Imagers Group)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Canes Venatici (CVn) · Contains: IC 4263 · M 51 · NGC 5194 · NGC 5195 · Whirlpool galaxy

M51 Whirlpool Galaxy, Harrington Beach Imagers Group

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M51 Whirlpool Galaxy

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M51 Whirlpool Galaxy

Galaxies are not particularly in my grasp with the two small refractors I use for imaging, so I decided to give my old Vixen 8" Newtonian a shot at it. At 800mm FL, it's the longest system I've got, but it IS fast. Collimation is always a battle, and I don't have a coma corrector yet. I haven't imaged with the Vixen for a couple years and was curious to see how it got along with my CCD. I was pleasantly surprised. The stars would definitely benefit from having a coma corrector in the optical train. I'm still looking for a used Baader MPCC MkIIII, my frugality will not allow me to buy new!

This image is a result of 64 minutes of data taken over two different nights; one very damp with low transparency and a Moon in the east, and one with no Moon and a 4/5 transparency. M51 is an old go-to favorite of mine, I will probably get more data to add to it to see if I can increase detail. Luminance was binned 1x1, RGB was 2x2.

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Milwaukee Astronomical Society

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Status	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	1170110
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

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M51 Whirlpool Galaxy

M51 Whirlpool Galaxy

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M51 Whirlpool Galaxy

M51 Whirlpool Galaxy

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