M 101 – Pinwheel Galaxy @ 150 mm (My First Galaxy) (Van H. McComas)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Ursa Major (UMa) · Contains: 83 UMa · 84 UMa · 86 UMa · M 101 · NGC 5457 · Pinwheel galaxy · The star 83UMa · The star 84UMa · The star 86UMa

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M 101 – Pinwheel Galaxy @ 150 mm (My First Galaxy)

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M 101 – Pinwheel Galaxy @ 150 mm (My First Galaxy)

M 101 – Pinwheel Galaxy @ 150 mm (My First Galaxy)

This is my first successful image of a galaxy and I have tried several times. With my gear I need to take baby steps and not go to a long focal length off the bat which has been my first of many mistakes. Even on this one I found the target on the first try but kept the focal length at 150 even though I was very tempted to go up to 300 or 400 mm but not the maximum of 600 mm for this Sigma lens. For my first galaxy I am pleased.

I now have on order some additional gear to help me (a) point the camera in the right spot of the sky (green laser pointer) and (b) make the fine adjustments in pointing the camera much easier. Many thanks to Ian Dixon for his help to improve my setup.

For my 10 days off I was very lucky to get three nice clear nights (clear skies have ended now). This night was not ideal, I had some wind issues. I had planned, based on the Clear Sky Chart, to shoot at least 30 Lights but by the time 20 was done the winds were up and I stopped at 25 only to have to delete 7 of those. So this is a stack of 18 Lights, 10 Darks, 10 Flats, and 10 Dark Flats. I used the modified Canon T7i and the sigma 150-600 mm telephoto lens, f/6.3, ISO 800, and 1 minute exposures.

Camera Lens Astrophotography
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Wide Angle Deep Sky Objects

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	3446488
PixInsight job	4W3XZ6JA8KAJUJ79P234GPV3WK3IQ3FQ
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

RA (center)	13h55m06s.80
RA (top/left)	13h38m51s.62
RA (top/right)	13h42m01s.69
RA (bottom/right)	14h08m59s.13
RA (bottom/left)	14h10m32s.37

Dec (center)	+53°30′30″.9
Dec (top/left)	+56°49′15″.10
Dec (top/right)	+50°00′33″.5
Dec (bottom/right)	+50°04′44″.8
Dec (bottom/left)	+56°54′09″.10

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M 101 – Pinwheel Galaxy @ 150 mm (My First Galaxy)

M 101 – Pinwheel Galaxy @ 150 mm (My First Galaxy)

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M 101 – Pinwheel Galaxy @ 150 mm (My First Galaxy)

M 101 – Pinwheel Galaxy @ 150 mm (My First Galaxy)

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