M51 Whirlpool Galaxy

[WolfieGlos]

Another one I've been working on with the short nights and lack of astro-darkness, is the favourite M51 The Whirlpool Galaxy.

Just like my post of my image of M63 https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/409905-m63-sunflower-galaxy/ , the colours produced from Siril of galaxies were of a mauve and warm feel to the whole image and the galaxy. Whilst it did show some blue, it was very dull and I just cannot understand why this is.

So I once again stacked with ASTAP, and again, it produced a far more colourful and better balanced colour image right from the off. However, whilst Siril leaves no trace of satellites or even brightly lit planes flying overhead, ASTAP struggles to fully remove satellites (some small traces remain). As for planes with their bright lights streaking across the image? They get left in, so they have to be removed from the stack. Fortunately I only had 4 subs like this, so not a huge loss.

For 10 hours of imaging I was hoping for more of the fainter swirls but that's probably due to the brighter night skies we have.

Details:

Starfield 102 + 0.8reducer + Canon 800D on HEQ5.

Imaged across 4 sessions in May and June, 296 x 120s lights, with 50 bias, 40 flats and 26 darks. Processed in Siril, GIMP and DenoisePY.

Hope you like, comments/criticism welcome 🙂