3 Months Grappling with M51 - 200PDS

[jimjam11]

After 3 months of acquisition on M51 I think I have reach the point of diminishing returns @ 15hr of integration. In truth I only got a couple of hours in Jan, 0 hours in feb, a few more hours in March and the rest in April. Clear weather kept falling around the full moon so this has taken way longer than it should have! Seeing was generally average until my last run a few nights ago; The luminance stack has a FWHM of 2.68" but for most of the 14/04 night subs were < 2.2" with some dipping below 2". 

Just over 10h of Lum, and 90m per channel for RGB. 

Annotated version:

Edited April 17, 2020 by jimjam11

[ShrewView]

That's lovely. Time very well spent.

[red dwalf]

a beautiful image, you must be chuffed with it, well done

[Tommohawk]

Yep, lovely image - super detail in M51, nice background and stars nice shape and colour. Nice job!

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Really brilliant image

[MarkAR]

Excellent image.

[carastro]

Excellent

Carole 

[simmo39]

Brilliant! just luv it.

[Erling G-P]

Very very nice!

[Whistlin Bob]

Best M51 I've seen in a long time...

[lnlarxg]

On 17/04/2020 at 11:25, jimjam11 said:

After 3 months of acquisition on M51 I think I have reach the point of diminishing returns @ 15hr of integration. In truth I only got a couple of hours in Jan, 0 hours in feb, a few more hours in March and the rest in April. Clear weather kept falling around the full moon so this has taken way longer than it should have! Seeing was generally average until my last run a few nights ago; The luminance stack has a FWHM of 2.68" but for most of the 14/04 night subs were < 2.2" with some dipping below 2". 

Just over 10h of Lum, and 90m per channel for RGB. 

Annotated version:

 

so good, I am a little bit of a Newtonian Die hard fan, I think in good hands these cost effective scopes are every bit as good as £1k+ refractors

what camera did you use?

[jimjam11]

ASI1600MM Pro.

Lum subs were 60s @ gain 0, RGB were 60s @ gain 76.