Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Canes Venatici (CVn)  ·  Contains:  IC 4277  ·  IC 4278  ·  M 51  ·  NGC 5194  ·  NGC 5195  ·  Whirlpool Galaxy
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Messier 51., astroeyes
Messier 51.
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Messier 51.

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
Messier 51., astroeyes
Messier 51.
Powered byPixInsight

Messier 51.

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Description

There haven't been too many clear nights around here lately and then we got one

last week but the moon was nearly full. I was itching to try my guider on longer

subs and decided to see if I could cut through the moonlight by imaging a bright

galaxy. I chose M51, because it was in a good position quite far from the moon

and also because it's an Arp galaxy that I haven't imaged with the H9C camera.

I took 5 x 2min, 5 x 3min, 5 x 4min and 3 x 5 min exposures. The FWHM figures

for the same star for each exposure went up from 1.54 arcsec for the 2 min

exposures to 1.79 arcsec for the 5 min exposures. I could scarcely believe what

I was seeing and even if the figures aren't right the relative values are. So

I'm pretty happy with that. So what did the final image look like? I just did a

sigma combine on the 18 images and that makes a 60 minute exposure.

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  • Messier 51., astroeyes
    Original
  • Final
    Messier 51., astroeyes
    B

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Messier 51., astroeyes