M51 another first

[bigal1]

Hi all well to my surprise i've been able to get out again and continue the testing with my new 70mm scope . Thought i'd go for M51 this time as i was told it is easier to image than M101 which was my last attempt , only problem was the awkward position in the sky which was more or less vertical and the clouds rolling in half way through my subs which cut the session short . Equipment used was an IKI70mm ED scope and a Canon 1000d mounted on a CG-4 with motors installed but no guiding , final image was 1 hour 15 mins @ 90 second exposures 1600 iso .

Regards Alan

[Gina]

That's pretty good There is quite a lot of data in there I think which could be pulled out. The colour saturation could do with increasing and I think you could stretch the histogram to bring out more detail.

[bigal1]

That's pretty good There is quite a lot of data in there I think which could be pulled out. The colour saturation could do with increasing and I think you could stretch the histogram to bring out more detail.

Thanks Gina i did try stretching a bit more but always run into problems with noise ( well i think it is ) although i shot the same amount of darks flats and bias as the lights so not sure what the problem is yet , i have just made a better filter to try on my laptop screen when taking the flats so maybe that will help .

[ultranova]

A surprising amount of detaol considering the focal length, also taking into account you were not guiding. well done

[Chris]

Really nice first M51 Alan:) As well as what Gina suggests, I used to have my background quite dark like yours until someone on here suggested making my background a bit lighter, so I tried it and found things looked a tad more natural, its all subjective of course but I would like to pass on this advice which I thought was good:)

[Quatermass]

Looks very good for a first M51 my first M51 was really rubbish shot in very light polluted section of the sky and focus was way out but I was still very happy to have captured it.

First attempt last year