Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Canes Venatici (CVn)  ·  Contains:  IC 4263  ·  M 51  ·  NGC 5194  ·  NGC 5195  ·  Whirlpool Galaxy
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M51 in LRGB, reglogge
M51 in LRGB
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M51 in LRGB

Revision title: Slightly different colour balance

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
M51 in LRGB, reglogge
M51 in LRGB
Powered byPixInsight

M51 in LRGB

Revision title: Slightly different colour balance

Equipment

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Acquisition details

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Description

With galaxy season in full swing, I pointed my rather smallish refractor (115mm aperture and 642mm focal length) at M51 to see how much detail and structure I would be able to get out of this iconic pair of interacting galaxies. And after more than 18h of exposure time with rather short subexposures due to the light pollution on my balcony I am quite pleased.

Most of the editing, starting with calibration and stacking, was done in Pixinsight, where especially the new stretching script Generalized Hyperbolic Stretch came in very handy due to the fact that it allows very precise targeting of contrast enhancing stretches. In the end I needed only a very soft HDR run to bring out the details in the main galaxy core. Final adjustments of color and contrast were done in Affinity Photo.

Comments

Revisions

  • M51 in LRGB, reglogge
    Original
  • M51 in LRGB, reglogge
    B
  • Final
    M51 in LRGB, reglogge
    D

B

Title: Slightly different colour balance

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D

Description: Reprocessing

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Sky plot

Sky plot

Histogram

M51 in LRGB, reglogge