The Whirlpool Galaxy

[Gerr]

Hi All,

This is a reworked attempt at M51 taken on 5th March recently. Moon was waning gibbous, wind was gentle breeze and the Jetstream was favourable.

SW200P Reflector with guiding approx. 0.4 to 0.5 RMS accuracy. Canon 650D (ISO1600). HEQ5 Mount (Rowan belt mod).

Lights: 92x90secs (2.3hrs imaging time). Relatively short exposures as I was using the Optolong L-Pro filter and the histogram was eagerly trying to advance to the middle half!! I live in Bortle 6 skies.

Stacked in DSS and processed solely in Photoshop CS2 (an old version but I 'm comfortable with it!).

CC's welcome!

Gerr.

 

 

 

[irtuk]

Beautiful. If I can get anything like close to this quality I will be well pleased, its what I am working on tonight to add to subs from the last couple of days.

[vlaiv]

Maybe went a bit overboard with denoising?

How about doing it selectively?

Here is easy trick that I'm sure can be replicated in CS2.

Make copy of base layer and do denoising on that copy. Add layer mask to that denoised layer - consisting of inverted mono version of denoised layer.

Do levels "anti-stretch" on mask (opposite of when you want to bring out faint stuff - instead - make dark parts of image stand out - as this is negative).

Blend to taste

 

[Gerr]

Thanks for the comments.

Regards to denoising - not sure?

Image was obtained using a sub £200 camera with a £100 telescope.

My mount was expensive at £900!!!

My imaging software was free - DSS and CD-ROM photoshop CS2.

I'm pretty happy!

Gerrr.

 

[iapa]

Far better than my attempt the other day with 48 * 300s exposures.

very nice job