M51, Whirlpool Galaxy

[mftoet]

A total of 5.7 hours on the Whirlpool Galaxy and "My God, it's full off... background galaxies".

I've approximately followed the same recepy as with the Leo Triplet. Although you wouldn't call 5.7 hours a short exposure time, it's too short to get the same smooth background and "wow-factor" as with 8 hours. Conclusion: 5.7 hours is pretty good; 8.0 hours is nearly perfect.

Link to the website.

Link to the full resolution image.

For those who are interested, I've labeled the (background) galaxies that I could identify with Cartes du Ciel. It seems you can reach mag. 21 with a 6 inch scope on a dark site.

Thanks for watching.

[Brinders]

Awesome!

[MikeD]

Another fine result.

Mike.

[astroimpulse]

Spectacular!

The background galaxies are amazing too. NGC5169 is as good as some would get on an main shot.

Amazing.

[andrew956]

That is a spectacular image well done..

[Catanonia]

Very nice work and lovely colours.

I did the same last month or so ago and I was too amazed at the faint fuzzies out there.

Try the M108 and Owl Nebula region, loads there too

[ollypenrice]

You're on a roll, Maurice! The faint galaxies are so sharp and the colour in the image, galaxies , stars, background sky, are superb. No, perfect. Love it.

Olly

[RobH]

Another cracking image Maurice!

[althecoal]

Amazing picture..

[peter shah]

beautifully detailed superb colour, very well processed, great star colour very natural looking.......a real pleasure to look at

[saturn5]

Beautiful image,think i'll see how many wee smudgies i can see.

[Simms]

Inspiring... Brilliant work.

[msinclairinork]

Yup, that is a fine example of what can be achieved!

Just awesome!

Well done,

Michael

[Ransu]

Beautiful image. Amazing amount of galaxies!

[cloudbuster]

thats a beauty...well done! love the background fuzzies!

[Jannis]

Wow! That's just... Amazing!

[Coco]

Thats a stunner... the high res image link underneath is a must click

You're an interesting fella... I read up on you...

[adamsp123]

Stunningly good!

[Rob L]

The word awesome is often overused, but that is.... AWESOME

[tiwar]

Superb!!

T x

[Tim]

Jeepers! In the full size image the amount of background galaxies is amazing!

Very nice picture Maurice.

[Hypernova]

That is an amazing pic, you should be really proud to have captured such detail in the main galaxies and all those 'lil background fuzzies