My First Go At M51

[ultramol]

This is my first go at M51. Only 20 mins subs as I had problems but I will be having another go as soon as it's clear.

[Bonnylad]

Very nice Whirlpool. Can you supply exposure settings/ISO etc.?

Cheers

[ultramol]

Yes John. 40 x 30 second subs. 15 Dark frames. 15 Dark Bias frames. ISO 1600. Used my Canon 600D attached to my scope via a T adapter. Focused with a Bhatinov mask using live view on my camera zoomed in. Arcturus I think it was. Went through the 40 frames to weed out obvious bad ones ( there was three ). Stacked in DSS v 3,3,4. The resulting image went straight into photoshop with no tweaking in DSS. Then followed a set of tutorials by Doug German (google him ). I managed to remove a lot of noise from the stars but not from the galaxy alas, need more subs. But, I am happy with my first attempt.

Regards Geoff

[RSM]

Great first go Geoff. Hope you got the same buzz as I did when I first saw the feint outline of the Galaxy in your subs. I agree that you need more exposure time. Few more clear nights and you'll have a great image I'm sure. 

Richard. 

[Knighty2112]

Very nice. Well done!  

[Bonnylad]

8 hours ago, ultramol said:

Yes John. 40 x 30 second subs. 15 Dark frames. 15 Dark Bias frames. ISO 1600. Used my Canon 600D attached to my scope via a T adapter. Focused with a Bhatinov mask using live view on my camera zoomed in. Arcturus I think it was. Went through the 40 frames to weed out obvious bad ones ( there was three ). Stacked in DSS v 3,3,4. The resulting image went straight into photoshop with no tweaking in DSS. Then followed a set of tutorials by Doug German (google him ). I managed to remove a lot of noise from the stars but not from the galaxy alas, need more subs. But, I am happy with my first attempt.

Regards Geoff

Many thanks, Geoff.

Cheers

[ultramol]

8 hours ago, RSM said:

Great first go Geoff. Hope you got the same buzz as I did when I first saw the feint outline of the Galaxy in your subs. I agree that you need more exposure time. Few more clear nights and you'll have a great image I'm sure. 

Richard. 

I got giddy when I removed the red cast and started stretching the histogram and slowly but surely she revealed herself. It is so easy at this point to go too far with your adjustment in your effort to get an image.......Bit by bit the galaxy came into view....." Right, where is the wife, I will show it to her for the millionth time "...LOL

[StargeezerTim]

Nice M51. Sounds like you have developed astrophotoholism like me! Careful, it will bleed your wallet and affect family relationships. There is no known cure apart from throwing increasing quantities of money at it.

[MARS1960]

Well done, it looks a bit like my effort except in your image you actually do have M51 .

[stanford__]

Beautiful photo!

It's photos like this that really reinforce my desire to do this! 

Out of interest, which scope and mount are you using? 

[ultramol]

22 minutes ago, stanford__ said:

Beautiful photo!

It's photos like this that really reinforce my desire to do this! 

Out of interest, which scope and mount are you using? 

I used an EQ5 mount with the skywatcher motor kit. This has an ASTROEQ interface and use EQMod to run it. I used a Skywatcher 200p scope and attached to that was my canon 600d

Hope that helps you. I must say the mount only just manages the weight with the camera on

Regards    Geoff

[stanford__]

27 minutes ago, ultramol said:

I used an EQ5 mount with the skywatcher motor kit. This has an ASTROEQ interface and use EQMod to run it. I used a Skywatcher 200p scope and attached to that was my canon 600d

Hope that helps you. I must say the mount only just manages the weight with the camera on

Regards    Geoff

That really helps actually because it's concreted in my mind I need the HEQ5 not the EQ5! 

I'm not sure whether to go for the 200P or the ED80 (I think the 200p might be a little big to carry as I'll be doing 90% of my viewing and imaging away from home) 

Thanks for the info!

Danny