My imaging plan for the Texas Star Party was to focus on RGB targets. Based on the less-than-ideal weather forecast for the week, I planned conservatively and only choose two targets to image. Since every astrophotographer needs an image of the Whirlpool Galaxy in their portfolio and I have zero images of it, I chose M51 as my first target. My second target was the Shark Nebula. The plan was to capture data on M51 during the first half of the night and then switch over to Shark and image it until astronomical dawn.
With the weather forecast for the week of the star party not improving, I decided to image only M51 on the first clear night to ensure I had enough RGB data on at least one of my two planned targets to make a final image. While I ended up being able to image on four different nights, only one of those nights was cloud-free the entire night. On the other three nights, the clouds rolled in just before I could switch over to Shark Nebula. On the fourth night it was partly cloudy early before the clouds fully rolled in, so I collaborated with my
son on
M101 since the supernova (SN2023ixf) had just been discovered the night before.
Overall, I'm pleased with my first attempt at imaging Whirlpool. Revision A is the uncropped version (saved at half resolution) while the final version is about a 46% crop. This was my first full imaging run using the SCA260 and while I am excited about the new scope, I hate being at the bottom of the learning curve with it.
Comments