The Whirlpool Galaxy (Walter Torres)

The Whirlpool Galaxy

Revision title: + 2.5hrs of Ha

M51 is one of my favorite objects in the night sky. I almost went through this season without imaging it, but I was able to get some good subs over two nights at two different darker sites this past weekend. Imaging opportunities are precious in Chicagoland so we have to pick targets wisely, we only have a few clear nights a month if we're lucky. But I'm glad I went back to this old favorite, as always, The Whirlpool is a treat to look at.

I accumulated 180 X 120sec LRGB subs, one after the other for consistency and dithered for noise management over two nights.
Stacked in DeepSkyStacker and calibrated with darks, flats, and dark flats.

PixInsight workflow:
Cropped all channels roughly 4% on each side
Dynamic Background Extraction on all channels
Stretched RGB channels with EZ Soft Stretch Script
Combined RGB with LRGB Combination
Extracted L from RGB image
Reapplied L to RGB image with 0.350 Saturation X 3 times for color
Background Neutralization
Color Calibration
Processed L Manually
Stretched with Histogram Transformation and Curves Transformation
HDR Multiscale Transform
Multiscale Linear Transform
Created star mask with StarNet2
EZ Star Reduction Script
NoiseXTerminator
Applied L to RGB image with Chrominance Noise Reduction

Photoshop workflow:
Camera Raw Filter
Shawdows -20%
Blacks -20%
Texture 20%
Vibrance 20%
Color Mixer (Saturation)
Reds 40%
Oranges 20%
Yellows 20%
Greens -20%
Blues 20%

Edit: I accumulated 66 x300sec subs of Ha back in mid June and finally got around to learning how to add it my image. Thanks for the link to the toutorial Andy :-)
Edit 2: Added another 29 X300sec subs of Ha on March 3, 2023.

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Title: Added 5.5hrs of Ha

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Title: + 2.5hrs of Ha

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ZWO ASI294MM Pro Images
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Status	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	7446547
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

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The Whirlpool Galaxy

Revision title: + 2.5hrs of Ha

The Whirlpool Galaxy

Revision title: + 2.5hrs of Ha

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The Whirlpool Galaxy

Revision title: + 2.5hrs of Ha

The Whirlpool Galaxy

Revision title: + 2.5hrs of Ha

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Acquisition details

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Sky plot

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