Messier 51 - Whirlpool Galaxy - NGC 5194 ( Steve Rosenow )

Messier 51 - Whirlpool Galaxy - NGC 5194

Imaging Telescopes Or Lenses: Spiratone 500mm Schmidt-Cassegrain mirror lens
Imaging Cameras: Nikon D5100
Mounts: Meade LX5
Software: photoshop · DeepSkyStacker
Guiding Telescopes Or Lenses: Meade SC 8" LX-5

Dates:: Jan. 17, 2013
Frames:: 5×540″(45′)
Integration:: 45′
Avg. Moon age:: 5.98 days
Avg. Moon phase:: 35.28%

Resolution: 1172x634

File size: 375.9 KB

Locations: Loowit Imaging Observatory, Shelton, Washington, United States

Last night afforded me my first opportunity to do the good ol' Whirlpool Galaxy. Let me tell ya, this sucker's an elusive critter when you don't have a Go-To scope!

After a half hour of tediously looking for it through photo surveys of the Big Dipper handle region, I was about to give up until it showed up on a camera frame. At that point, I fine-tuned the aim via the drive corrector very tediously. After that, I set my camera's ISO to 1600 and began a quick imaging run of about 45 minutes duration, with frames about 5 minutes a piece. I was planning on doing a lot more imaging on it but as luck would have it, my fun was abruptly ended by a fast-rolling fog that covered the sky up in less than 10 minutes. Shot a few darks and flats and called it a night. Went to work processing it the next morning.

I had to crop out a large amount of empty space out of the photo since I shot it with my 500mmmirror lens. It looked rather small on the frame, and I didn't want a lot of empty space in it.

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