M51 and NGC 5195

[geeklee]

Similar to last year, April has offered up more clear nights than we've been used to recently. Astro darkness is around 4 hours right now.  This was captured over four nights with some fairly ruthless removal of subs where star shape or quality was poor.

A second project for my StellaLyra RC6, with M51 being a brighter target than my first project (NGC 3718).  I left it at F9, without a reducer.

In the end 9.5 hours was integrated with 285 x 120s subs.

Check out IC 4278 (just above NGC 5195) and IC 4278 (just above and to the right of NGC 5195). Very faint but clearly visible.

Captured with Voyager, calibrated & stacked in APP and processed in PixInsight

Thanks for looking and as always any feedback for improvements is welcome.

[Adreneline]

This one gets the big thumbs up from the wife so it’s a winner. I like it too!

Excellent job once again.

Adrian

[Sp@ce_d]

Looking good, very nice whirlpool.. one of my favourite targets. I was thinking of having another go with my current setup, not done this since my C9.25 in 2015. Guess that's for next year with the Moon heading up & Astro darkness rapidly running out now. We have been lucky with the clear nights recently though. 

[tooth_dr]

What a fantastic image Lee. 

[Gerr]

Great image. Excellent detail and lots of dusty stuff. I like the other fuzzies you captured as well. Nicely processed (I de-noised way too much on my last attempt but yours is nicely balanced). I myself am looking at RC6 as next scope perhaps. Keep the images coming to persuade me more!!!

Gerr.

[mackiedlm]

That's a really nice image. Brighter and less brooding than this sometimes comes out

Edited April 17, 2021 by mackiedlm

[geeklee]

10 hours ago, Adreneline said:

This one gets the big thumbs up from the wife so it’s a winner.

I'll take that Adrian!  I typically get a low key "mmhmm, yeah, very nice" 

9 hours ago, Sp@ce_d said:

We have been lucky with the clear nights recently though. 

Very much so.  Imagine 4 out of 5 nights clear nights like recently but when astrodark is 10 hours+ !  You best get cracking if you're squeezing in another go!

1 hour ago, Gerr said:

Excellent detail and lots of dusty stuff.

 

1 hour ago, mackiedlm said:

Brighter and less brooding than this sometimes comes out

NGC 5195 and surrounding dust etc was the most surprising of the stack - very clear and obvious.  If I do a ridiculous stretch on it, you can start to see the tails almost coming together the other way as well 😮 

You can definitely process this a few ways @mackiedlm and I'll likely revisit over the summer.  You can push the LHE and blend in some HDRMT versions to get a dark and contrasty image.  If you're interested, here's the raw stack, with just an STF (but with target background reduced to 0.2 instead of 0.25)

and a 1:1 crop before I resampled it to death:

That main image looks a touch over processed when I compare again to the stack 🤔  

Edited April 17, 2021 by geeklee

[petevasey]

Hi, Lee,

Just found your M51 - thanks for your kind comments on mine.  Your 6" RC with you at the helm has done an excellent job on this - must be very satisfying.  I see you also are interested in the faint extensions.  Presumably they have been caused by the interaction with NGC 5195.  I wonder if the pair will eventually merge and possibly turn into an elliptical galaxy.  That would be a shame, but we won't be around to see it!

Cheers,

Peter.

Edited April 18, 2021 by petevasey
Corrected typos!

[AbsolutelyN]

Cracking image Lee!

[CraigT82]

Superb M51👍 Really like how you haven't pushed the saturation too far

[geeklee]

4 hours ago, petevasey said:

I see you also are interested in the faint extensions.  Presumably they have been caused by the interaction with NGC 5195.  I wonder if the pair will eventually merge and possibly turn into an elliptical galaxy.  That would be a shame, but we won't be around to see it!

Thanks Peter.  Those faint extensions you highlighted in your super stretched version  aren't seen often but I can just about see the very start of them above.  You're right, something that will take a very long time to reach a final outcome of the two galaxies!