A first go at M51, Whirlpool Galaxy.

[AstroLearnerWill]

Hey

Fairly pleased with how M51 came out last night. Very clear skies and mostly a straightforward imaging session minus the telescope hitting the mount 6 minutes before I was due to meridian flip (whoops) - I've updated the meridian flip settings in NINA to account for this now. 

As always, I'm keen to hear folks thoughts and especially where any improvements can be made. I do consider myself a rookie with this hobby still! 

141x 60sec lights
75x bias
75x flats

Using NINA, PHD2 for capturing. 

Siril for stacking, pre-process, background extraction and photometric colour calibration. 

Photoshop for various actions from Annies Astrotools, including stretching and finer adjustments. 

 

[AstroLearnerWill]

I found it quite interesting that on one of the frames I captured, I see a strange light next to the galaxy, that appears to match the shape of the galaxy. It's the only frame out of 200+ that has this. 
What do you think caused it? 

You can see it here in a screen recording I captured of the raw image with the strange light while switching to and from another raw image that doesn't have the light showing:

 

edit: most likely a cosmic ray!

 

 

Edited April 4, 2023 by AstroLearnerWill
Found solution