Whirlpool Galaxy M51

[Paul Holdsworth]

Hi all, finally two consecutive clear nights! 

When I started the hobby 3 years ago I bought a bundle package of reflector telescope and mount then quickly added a 500mm refractor which seemed easier as a beginner not to have to deal with collimation etc . The newtonian has sat at the side of the computer gathering dust.....until now! I Bought a laser collimator a few weeks ago and thought I'd give it a go again especially with galaxy season starting. So here's my effort on the whirlpool galaxy (M51) which is 5 hours of 3 min subs over the last two nights using the optolong lpro filter and zwo 294 mc pro. It's only the second galaxy image i've done so lots to learn galaxy processing. I fully intend to add some Ha data to this by extracting some Ha from a L extreme narrowband to see if that adds anything but for now this is just plain old RGB data. 

Cheers Paul