First attempt at a Galaxy - M51/Whirlpool

[Johns22]

Here is my first "successful" attempt at a galaxy! The Whirlpool Galaxy (Messier 51) taken on 25th March 2020 from my garden using a Skywatcher 200P, EQ5 Goto Mount, Canon 600D, ZWO ASI 120mm Guidecam on a Skywatcher 9 x 50mm Finderscope, captured using NINA, guided with PHD2, stacked in Deepskystacker and processed in Photoshop, using GradientXTerminator action and Astronomytools action set.

I've found this really difficult to process and will probably spend time reprocessing in the future to find my preference but we have to start somewhere!

289 x 40 sec Lights @ ISO 800
40 x Bias frames @ ISO 800
30 x Dark frames @ ISO 800
20 x Flat frames

Stacked file also attached for anyone who would like to show me the error of my ways!

 

Autosave.tif

[MarkAR]

Looks good to me.

[Notty]

Hello. There is some very nice data in there.  I'm by no means any kind of authority on this as I astro image at least once a year(!), but I had a quick go through StarTools and I think I may have improved the colouring slightly, but it's personal taste 🙂

[astro mick]

A really good start with this Galaxy,i hope it gives you encouragement to carry on.

Mick.

[Paul2019]

Through an attempt to improve my processing with no data, what do you think?

 

[geeklee]

On 29/03/2020 at 22:21, Johns22 said:

I've found this really difficult to process and will probably spend time reprocessing in the future to find my preference but we have to start somewhere!

There's definitely good data in there.  Also some tricky background noise and gradients.  The image below had some light touch PixInsight work and was also resized, hope that adds something to the mix of examples above.

Edited March 31, 2020 by geeklee

[Johns22]

Thanks  @Notty @Paul2019 and @geeklee - its great to see different takes on my data. Glad you enjoy working with it 👍

[mackiedlm]

Thats pretty good for your first galaxy.