M101 - Pinwheel Galaxy

[GordonH]

Hi

I took this a couple of months ago with some Ha data added but was never happy with it as it looked "purple" so I didn't bother posting it. However, I've had another go at it but this time just using the RGB channels only and despite the red sub frames looking more like noise (transparency was appalling due to haze) I decided to process it to see what I could get. This time I used the ratios from a more recent G2V colour calibration when colour combining in Maxim DL, I had to use quite a bit of gradient removal due to light and colour gradients but the rest of the processing was a combination of only levels and curves with a minor shadows/highlights adjustment, there is no sharpening or noise reduction used.

It was taken with an FSQ106ED at f5 with a Starlight Xpress SXVF H9 on a Paramount ME auto guided by lodestar.

Exposures are 18x5 minutes each for red and blue and 13x5 minutes for green. I will do this again when conditions are considerable better but for now I am pleased with the result.

The "purple" version can be seen on the galaxies page of the image gallery of my website Imaging The Heavens - Home Page

There is a full size high resolution version at M101 - Pinwheel Galaxy photo - Gordon Haynes photos at pbase.com

Thanks for looking

Best wishes

Gordon

[Shibby]

Gordon, that's a really nice image of what I understand is a very faint/tricky object. Colours looking good!

[Crunchard]

Very nice indeed, nice detail.

[barkis]

M101 is a beautiful face on spiral galaxy, and when imaged well, it has well defined and detailed arms.

This is a very nice showing indeed.

Ron.