Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Ursa Major (UMa)  ·  Contains:  M 101  ·  NGC 5457  ·  NGC 5473  ·  NGC 5474  ·  NGC 5477
M101 Pinwheel Galaxy, StarGale
M101 Pinwheel Galaxy
Powered byPixInsight

M101 Pinwheel Galaxy

Equipment

Loading...

Acquisition details

Loading...

Description

M101 Pinwheel galaxy was tracked unguided without PEC with 60 second exposures to produce this image. About 2.5 hours of subexposures were captured but only the best 1 hours worth were used. The temperture dropped from 58 to 55 degrees F (15 to 13 degrees C) during the 2.5 hours, pretty stable.

Original image made from 62 lights, nor dark or bias frames.

Image B made from 111 lights (added lower quality lights with slight star trailing or enlongated stars). Also added 27 darks and 30 bias frames. The image resolution did not seem to suffer, DSS does a good job of keeping stars round. With the additional frames I was able to process more aggresively and show a bit more nebulosity and more color. Also did not blow out the core this time.

Image C same as Image B except reduced brightness of shadows using ArcSoft 5.5.

Image D more processing of Image B in Startools. Shifted color balance more to green and blue, increased contrast slightly, sharpened using medium scale preset. No longer has red overcast seen in image C, somewhat similar to original except better color saturation of field stars and galaxy, better detail definition in spiral arms.

Comments

Revisions

  • M101 Pinwheel Galaxy, StarGale
    Original
  • M101 Pinwheel Galaxy, StarGale
    B
  • M101 Pinwheel Galaxy, StarGale
    C
  • Final
    M101 Pinwheel Galaxy, StarGale
    D

Sky plot

Sky plot

Histogram

M101 Pinwheel Galaxy, StarGale