A very quick and light polluted M51 - 3 Inch scope :Updated with more outer bits

[NickH]

Second season on this one for me. Not ideal in terms of the light pollution and mist again (quite foggy here last night, but only in spurts, it then want very clear for about 2 hours). Moon on the other side of the sky, so picked this one as the "target of choice"

ED80 at F7.5, Astronomik CLS filter channel only. Judicious work in CS2 to bring out the fainter outer parts, whilst retaining some core detail and contrast

Around 35 x 3 minute subs, ART285/EQ6 Pro mount, guided by PHD/ST102/DSI-C

Point clipping for sure, but the muck in the background was the reason for that

[Naz]

Looks good on my monitor Nick, good contrast, a bit off clipping but still a lovely shot.

naz

[steppenwolf]

It looks good on my monitor too - crisp!

[RobH]

Nice and clean Nick

Lovely processing job, the faint stuff has come out really well.

Cheers

Rob

[NickH]

Thanks Rob and all

Just had another stab at it...this one is less clipped, and shows more faint stuff (had a look at Gendlers image to see what was real "faint stuff" and what was noise)

Also a negative shot to show the extended regions and nearby galaxies a bit better

[MartinB]

That first image is a cracker Nick. Much prefer that one to the second which doesn't look as natural some how

[NickH]

I'll go with that Martin, the second one was more to push the outer fluffy stuff..but after sitting away from it for a day, it's pushed it too far. The negative view is better for the second one, if you just want to see the outer fuzz.