M101 My first 48 minutes of the Pinwheel Galaxy

[sagramore]

The second target from this imaging session (after M97 the Owl and nearby M108 - see other posting!) was to get some data on M101, the Pinwheel Galaxy. I don't think I fully appreciated quite how dim this target is and having collected around 60 minutes of data, of which 48 were useable, I think I would like to revisit it sometime. This goes doubly true for when I have my autoguiding set up!

Messier 101 (Pinwheel galaxy)
2016-03-13, near Swindon, England

Gear:
Skywatcher 130-PDS with 0.9x coma corrector (585 mm, f/4.5)
Skywatcher NEQ6-Pro Synscan (unguided)
Canon EOS 550D (unmodified)

Acquisition:
- AstrophotographyTools (APT) using APT dithering (unguided)
- 24 x 120s = total 48 minutes @ ISO 800
- 30 flats + library bias & darks
- Stacked in DeepSkyStacker and post-processed in Photoshop CC 2015

High resolution Flickr link: HERE

I don't think it's a bad start and there's a few little NGCs in there to boot - NGC 5474 to the bottom centre of the image, and NGC 5473 and 5485 to the left of the galaxy. In the full resolution image you can just make out NGC 5477 down and left of the galaxy too! It needs more data but I'm quite pleased for the first try.

Thanks for looking, clear skies!

Hamish / sagramore

[kendg]

Very nice image. Great work.

[todd8137]

Very wide  looks great for the data you  got ,getting some more subs at a later date ? I love the wider views 

pat

[laudropb]

Very nice image.

[wimvb]

Very nice image with lots of small galaxies in the background.