Tapion

21 hours ago, Rallemikken said:

Not sure what equipment you used, but if you shot M51 with a DSLR and a standard 50mm lens, the galaxy would not be bigger than a star. Much to faint, details would drown. Learn to use a field-of-view calculator. To get a detailed picture where you clearly see that it is M51, you need a telescope at least 800mm long. I suggest you have a take at Andromeda, Triangulum galaxy, or the Pleiades if you stick to that lens. Or Orion, if you don't have to much light pollution.

Thanks Rallemikken. So, what would a super wide angle lens, such as the popular 12mm lenses, be used for? Milky Way shots or gas giants? Since I want to shoot galaxies, I guess I will need to save up and get a telescope I can mount my camera to or get a mega long lens by the sound of it.

Thanks for confirming that I did have the right spot. Would I just need more data/images to bring it out more? Or is a longer focal length just going to work better?

Hello Everyone,

For my first attempt at deep sky astro, I shot M51 over 3 nights. I used a Sony 6400 with an ISO of 500 at 10 seconds with a 50mm lens. While I know the math would suggest I use 6 seconds, I sampled several settings with DeepSkyStacker and got the best scores with 10 seconds. I used around 250 images, 25 flats, darks and biases. Stretched them how I have seen other stretch them in dozens of videos and...

...nothing. There is no M51 galaxy in my image. Not a hint of anything being there. I know I had the camera on the correct location. So does it sound like I used enough images? Any idea as to what a possible issue might be? I am really at a loss for where to go next. Also just an FYI, I have seen other people online using filters, but I do not have any. Still I would think something should show.

Any advice would be great on where to consider looking to work on the current problem.