Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Ursa Major (UMa)  ·  Contains:  M 101  ·  NGC 5447  ·  NGC 5449  ·  NGC 5450  ·  NGC 5451  ·  NGC 5453  ·  NGC 5455  ·  NGC 5457  ·  NGC 5461  ·  NGC 5462  ·  NGC 5471  ·  NGC 5473  ·  NGC 5474  ·  NGC 5477  ·  Pinwheel galaxy
M101 (UMa) - The Pinwheel Galaxy - a base layer with a touch of creativity, Wouter Cazaux
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M101 (UMa) - The Pinwheel Galaxy - a base layer with a touch of creativity

Revision title: Revisited, adding in the Ha sparkle

M101 (UMa) - The Pinwheel Galaxy - a base layer with a touch of creativity, Wouter Cazaux
Powered byPixInsight

M101 (UMa) - The Pinwheel Galaxy - a base layer with a touch of creativity

Revision title: Revisited, adding in the Ha sparkle

Equipment

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Acquisition details

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Description

20220109 - M101 (UMa) - The Pinwheel Galaxy - a base layer with a touch of creativity.

What’s in the picture(s) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinwheel_Galaxy
Quote: “The Pinwheel Galaxy (also known as Messier 101, M101 or NGC 5457) is a face-on spiral galaxy 21 million light-years away from Earth in the constellationUrsa Major”

What was the experience
Nebula season is gradually coming to a close, still some leftovers to pick up. But in the last part of the night, some of the notorious galaxies are coming into view for me.

I made a start with the base layer for M101, the Pinwheel Galaxy … hoping that the next few days would’ve allowed me to build up on the data🤞…. Yeah, right … clouds, full moon, no chance …

My base layer didn’t even get any of the ‘reds’ in, and with no chance in the foreseeable future to bring in the extra data, I decided to have a go at processing this anyway.

So, what do you do when you’re missing half of what you need …?
You become creative!

I figured the L-channel contained a lot of the red data anyway, so by tweaking this, I simulated a full processing. I think it turned out reasonably ok👌… but I will be looking to add more data … when we get some clear skies again … in a couple of months 🙄 (big sigh)

How it was done
Scope: TS140 APO (FL 910mm)
Mount: CEM70G
Camera: ASI2600MM Pro
Photons: 20220109 HaRGB 9x 0x 3x 6x
Darks/Flats/Bias
Processing: PixInsight (Mac)

What have I learned from this
Although the aim is to get a full set of data, and more integration time, it’s interesting to see what creativity in processing can do to solve the lack of a full channel. Happy with the start I made on this one. More to come … later 😉

Clear Skies everybody! 🤩✨🔭

Follow me @astrowaut

Comments

Revisions

  • M101 (UMa) - The Pinwheel Galaxy - a base layer with a touch of creativity, Wouter Cazaux
    Original
  • M101 (UMa) - The Pinwheel Galaxy - a base layer with a touch of creativity, Wouter Cazaux
    B
  • Final
    M101 (UMa) - The Pinwheel Galaxy - a base layer with a touch of creativity, Wouter Cazaux
    C
  • M101 (UMa) - The Pinwheel Galaxy - a base layer with a touch of creativity, Wouter Cazaux
    D

B

Title: Beyond the base-layer, additional data and re-processed

Description: 20220131 - Re-processing time: The base-layer was lacking data, seriously. By chance there were 2 nights of Clear Skies, so the scope has been bringing in some additional data, in between other DSO (additional data from 20220124 and 20220127). Not all of the LRGB that I wanted, but already sufficient for a decent image. Still more data needed though

Uploaded: ...

C

Title: Revisited, adding in the Ha sparkle

Description: I’ve been capturing additional data, and processed this into a LRGB version, with Ha blended into the red channel. The Ha seemed so over-powering that I toned down the blend quite substantially, avoiding a totally pink pinwheel.

I’ve processed and re-processed this image more than a dozen times, trying to figure out the right look of the Ha-blend, the colour balance, the HDR-blend, the level of detail with the localHistogram, whether or not to sharpen with the MultiScaleLineairTranaformation, rangeMasking the core, etc … and finally settling for this version … for now.

As my images are high resolution, I’ve also made a crop which is still 2k x 3k resolution, showing M101 more up-close.

The image could still do with some additional integration time, but I’m happy with the result so far 😎 … Looking forward to the next (quality) step 🤩

Uploaded: ...

D

Title: 50% crop of the previous image

Description: As my images are high resolution, I’ve also made a crop which is still 2k x 3k resolution, showing M101 more up-close

Uploaded: ...

Sky plot

Sky plot

Histogram

M101 (UMa) - The Pinwheel Galaxy - a base layer with a touch of creativity, Wouter Cazaux