Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Canes Venatici (CVn)  ·  Contains:  IC 4277  ·  IC 4278  ·  M 51  ·  NGC 5194  ·  NGC 5195  ·  PGC 2292105  ·  PGC 2294282  ·  Whirlpool Galaxy
The Whirlpool Galaxy - M51, Corey Rueckheim
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The Whirlpool Galaxy - M51

The Whirlpool Galaxy - M51, Corey Rueckheim
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The Whirlpool Galaxy - M51

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Description

This was my second night using my new off-axis guider and a guide camera, and I concentrated on taking the best images I could of one target. Because the Moon was out, I picked the Whirlpool Galaxy because it is bright, and it was high in the sky. I spent a good amount of time with collimation and focusing to make sure the stars were as round and sharp as possible.

Of the 41 five-minute exposures I took, I found that using only 23 of them resulted in the best balance between sharpness and graininess. Using all 41 resulted in a softer image with more bloated stars, while using less than 23 resulted in slightly sharper-looking images, but were significantly grainier.

During my first attempt to process this image, I accidentally had the red and blue channels reversed, and although it looked pretty cool, it didn't look quite right. But it took me awhile to figure out what I did wrong! I've now got the channels correct, but I have a long way to go in figuring out how to bring out more color in my images. This image looks mostly grey to me, with a bit of yellow. I tried to bring out the blue in the spiral arms a little more, and maybe a little of the pink from hydrogen alpha clouds, but I couldn't get that to happen.

I also experimented with taking dark frames in my freezer, which worked okay, though I can still see a little bit of amp glow in the upper right of this image.

Comments

Revisions

  • The Whirlpool Galaxy - M51, Corey Rueckheim
    Original
  • Final
    The Whirlpool Galaxy - M51, Corey Rueckheim
    B

B

Description: I've learned a bit about image sharpening techniques which I have now applied to this image. I've also darkened the background a bit. I generally don't mind seeing a little noise if it also allows more detail to be discerned, but I felt the noise in the background of the original version was just too much.

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The Whirlpool Galaxy - M51, Corey Rueckheim

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Central USA