M51 L

[MikeD]

The forcast last night was for cloud and rain, so I was surprised to see some stars last night. :shock:

Conditions where not good, but not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth I opened up the obs and started a run on M51.

5 minute subs where washing out pretty bad under the conditions but I decided to just let it run in the hope that thinks would improve.

Things did but not by much, I captured 39 five minute subs and have used 18 in this stack.

Not very deep because of the conditions, so I will not be using this data for my M51 project as I promised myself I would only use good clean data.

That's turning out to be a tuff promise to keep as I have got nothing useable yet out of 60 odd 5 minute subs captured over the last few weeks.

Thought I would post it anyway as I have processed it.

18 @ 5 Min's through the 10" newt and HX916 CCD, guided with 80ed EQ6 and Maxim DL.

(click to enlarge)

Mike.

[CELESCOPE]

Still come out well though Mike , at least you are getting something , i,m trying to remember what a star looks like hehehe

Rog

[barkis]

Lovely pic. there Mike. the guiding looks to be perfection judging by the star quality.

It is odd how many images produced under suspect conditions always turn out so well.

Ron.

[Astroscot2]

Very detailed Mike, hope your going back to add color to that one :hello1:

[bazza]

Cracking image Mike.

I'm not sure what your M51 project is....I must've missed that post, but are you sure you can't use this data?

It looks good to me, some lovely detail has come out.

Barry.

[MikeD]

Cheers guys.

Cracking image Mike.

I'm not sure what your M51 project is....I must've missed that post, but are you sure you can't use this data?

It looks good to me, some lovely detail has come out.

Barry.

The plan is/was (weather getting in the way) to hit M51 hard with lots of good luminance, colour and Ha data.

You are right there is some good detail in this shot it's the fainter detail that's just not up to scratch and will affect the final result.

I wanted to use only data collected on clean dark nights, though the way things are going I may have to use some of this data if only as a masked layer for the brighter parts of the image.

All I need is 5 good nights to get what I need but that's starting to look it will never happen.

Mike

[centroid]

That's a pretty good result Mike, giving last night's conditions, which were quite below average.

Troubleis, if you wait for really good 'seeing', to add subs to the 'project', its likely to take you a very long time to complete.

Dave

[SteelRat]

Great 51 pic Mike 8) Loads of detail. Real good work.

Cheers

Matthew(SR)

[Naz]

You have set your self high standards Mike, and I understand why you want the best quality for your project, but that is still a good image.

naz

[markcol]

Very nice shot Mike, look forward to the final version - weather permitting...

Mark

[Sam]

That really is an awesome image - there's so much detail in the spiral arms - and there's even two distant galaxies just visible on the left of M51! well done!!

[RobH]

Very nice work Mike

I was wondering if it may be possible to use so called 'sub standard' luminance data and then put a high quality luminance layer over the top of it....might have to give it a go and see if it works

Cheers

Rob

[jgs001]

Very nice image Mike

[steppenwolf]

Excellent, some very nice detail.

[MikeD]

Thanks guys for all the kind comments, spurs me on to keep trying.

Mike.

[Beyond_Vision]

If that is not good enough for the 'project data' then I cant wait to see the final result. The 'practice run' picture has some really good detail with the dark lanes showing good contrast.

Regards

Kevin

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

An excellent result Mike. I was pointed in the same direction with the Tal, but had to bin 2X due to the seeing, random clouds and general rubbish sky. It's looking good if that's for the bin wrt your finished article M51. Best of luck with the finished article.

Kaptain Klevtsov

[MikeD]

. It's looking good if that's for the bin wrt your finished article M51. Best of luck with the finished article.

Kaptain Klevtsov

Oh god what have I done, inadvertently bigged up an image I haven't even taken yet

Mike

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

Get on with it then. We're waiting. :nono:

Have you done it yet?

Have you done it yet?

Are we there yet?

Kaptain Klevtsov

[MikeD]

:thebirdman:

Well................ I have been distracted and am shooting ngc3628 at the mo (or was until the clouds rolled in)

If it clears again and when M51 is a little higher I will get back to it.

Mike.

[zhgutas]

Sharp enough for to very nice image

marius