Help Planning M51

[gnomus]

As I was finishing up last night, I thought I'd try a quick 30 sec exposure @ 6400 ISO of M51 to see if this could be a suitable target for next time.  Here is the uncropped result - taken with my EOS 600D through the ED80 with focal reducer:

As you can see the target is quite small.  What is my best course of action?

1) Shoot as is - the target is small - accept it.

2) Use the same equipment, but remove the focal reducer.

3) As above (no focal reducer), but add my Powermate 2.5x into the chain.

4) Try using the C8 Edge to image this target.

5) Try a different target - I'm getting ideas above my station.

6) Something I haven't thought of ....

I'd be grateful for your advice.  

And, thanks in anticipation.

[Xplode]

1) should give good results with lowest noise of your choices.

2) a little more details, also more noise

3) pointless, you would be imaging at around f/19 and overwhelmed by noise

4) probably your best choice for getting details and noise levels that are acceptable

5) fewer and fewer targets for short FL scopes this late in the season especially late at night. Maybe a globular cluster?

When it comes to imaging with a DSLR speed is very important to get low noise, for low noise imaging you really want something faster than f/6 and the faster the better.