Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Canes Venatici (CVn)  ·  Contains:  IC 4263  ·  M 51  ·  NGC 5169  ·  NGC 5194  ·  NGC 5195  ·  NGC 5198  ·  Whirlpool galaxy
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M51 from Denver, Colorado (2017), Ken Sturrock
M51 from Denver, Colorado (2017)
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M51 from Denver, Colorado (2017)

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
M51 from Denver, Colorado (2017), Ken Sturrock
M51 from Denver, Colorado (2017)
Powered byPixInsight

M51 from Denver, Colorado (2017)

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Description

M51 taken from my backyard near Denver, Colorado.

I ended up using about 24 hours of data, which was only half of what I originally took.

Even though I collect a lot of frames, much of it is sub-par due to seeing and the occasional high clouds blocking the target but also reflecting light pollution.

I was hurt by having less Ha and Luminance data to stand against a larger amount of R,G & B data, so I had to get a little creative when it came time to combining color channels - without introducing noise from the lesser-time channels.. The Ha ended up just getting mixed in with R. The Luminance was mixed with extracted lightness from the RGB to quiet it down a bit more, then blended back after an attempt at deconvolution.

I'm still fighting my subtle ICX814-related background "tiger stripes", but mostly controlled them through PixelMath.

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M51 from Denver, Colorado (2017), Ken Sturrock