Attached is my 4th attempt at imaging the Whirlpool Galaxy M51 in Canes Venatici. This is one of the most popular targets for astro-imagers as it’s bright, relatively large, full of intricate detail and rises relatively high in the UK Spring skies. The collision between the Whirlpool Galaxy and its companion galaxy is tearing apart the structure of the smaller galaxy spreading a stream of stars outwards and the gravitational interaction is also producing bright star forming regions in the Whirlpool Galaxy. The image consists of the following sub-exposures: L unbinned 26 x 300s; B, G and Ha 12 x 300s and R 13 x 300s all binned x 2 making a total of 7 hours and 15 minutes of imaging time. I imaged this galaxy on 5 nights between 16 May and 9 June 2019 from my back-garden observatory in Oxted. I used a Celestron Edge 11 HD operating at f/10 with a Moravian Instruments G2 8300 CCD camera, a Paramount MX and Lodestar 2 guide camera. Image capture was done with Maxim DL and I used CCD Stack2 and Photoshop CS5 for further processing. Thanks for looking.
Tim C
Attached is my 4th attempt at imaging the Whirlpool Galaxy M51 in Canes Venatici. This is one of the most popular targets for astro-imagers as it’s bright, relatively large, full of intricate detail and rises relatively high in the UK Spring skies. The collision between the Whirlpool Galaxy and its companion galaxy is tearing apart the structure of the smaller galaxy spreading a stream of stars outwards and the gravitational interaction is also producing bright star forming regions in the Whirlpool Galaxy. The image consists of the following sub-exposures: L unbinned 26 x 300s; B, G and Ha 12 x 300s and R 13 x 300s all binned x 2 making a total of 7 hours and 15 minutes of imaging time. I imaged this galaxy on 5 nights between 16 May and 9 June 2019 from my back-garden observatory in Oxted. I used a Celestron Edge 11 HD operating at f/10 with a Moravian Instruments G2 8300 CCD camera, a Paramount MX and Lodestar 2 guide camera. Image capture was done with Maxim DL and I used CCD Stack2 and Photoshop CS5 for further processing. Thanks for looking.
Tim C
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Attached is my 4th attempt at imaging the Whirlpool Galaxy M51 in Canes Venatici. This is one of the most popular targets for astro-imagers as it’s bright, relatively large, full of intricate detail and rises relatively high in the UK Spring skies. The collision between the Whirlpool Galaxy and its companion galaxy is tearing apart the structure of the smaller galaxy spreading a stream of stars outwards and the gravitational interaction is also producing bright star forming regions in the Whirlpool Galaxy. The image consists of the following sub-exposures: L unbinned 26 x 300s; B, G and Ha 12 x 300s and R 13 x 300s all binned x 2 making a total of 7 hours and 15 minutes of imaging time. I imaged this galaxy on 5 nights between 16 May and 9 June 2019 from my back-garden observatory in Oxted. I used a Celestron Edge 11 HD operating at f/10 with a Moravian Instruments G2 8300 CCD camera, a Paramount MX and Lodestar 2 guide camera. Image capture was done with Maxim DL and I used CCD Stack2 and Photoshop CS5 for further processing. Thanks for looking.
Tim C
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<M51 Whirlpool Galaxy BB Edge11 noFR MorG2 8300 August 2021.jpg>
Attached is my 4th attempt at imaging the Whirlpool Galaxy M51 in Canes Venatici. This is one of the most popular targets for astro-imagers as it’s bright, relatively large, full of intricate detail and rises relatively high in the UK Spring skies. The collision between the Whirlpool Galaxy and its companion galaxy is tearing apart the structure of the smaller galaxy spreading a stream of stars outwards and the gravitational interaction is also producing bright star forming regions in the Whirlpool Galaxy. The image consists of the following sub-exposures: L unbinned 26 x 300s; B, G and Ha 12 x 300s and R 13 x 300s all binned x 2 making a total of 7 hours and 15 minutes of imaging time. I imaged this galaxy on 5 nights between 16 May and 9 June 2019 from my back-garden observatory in Oxted. I used a Celestron Edge 11 HD operating at f/10 with a Moravian Instruments G2 8300 CCD camera, a Paramount MX and Lodestar 2 guide camera. Image capture was done with Maxim DL and I used CCD Stack2 and Photoshop CS5 for further processing. Thanks for looking.
Tim C
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Dear all
Thanks you for your kind comments in respect of this image. It’s taken quite a long time for me to get around to processing this data but I’m pleased with the way it’s turned out. M51 is such a well-known object it was slightly daunting to process the image – I feel the same way about the Orion Nebula. @Brian, your suggestion of me submitting some of my images to a magazine is a good one so I will try to action that. @Andrew, re the differences between the QSI 690 and the Moravian G2 8300 – the main one is field of view. The KAF 8300 chip with its larger pixels and slightly larger chip produces a wider field of view which frames this object better (see astronomy tools screenshot below). I wanted a backup for the QSI and the KAF 8300 chip was well regarded and from a theoretical sampling point of view was a better match for the Edge 11 than the QSI with its very small pixels. In reality, I wonder how much difference that actually makes. The KAF 8300 (being an older chip) probably has lower quantum efficiency and certainly slower download times than the QSI 690. It did however frame the target much better using the Edge 11 than the QSI which would have cropped the galaxy too closely. I was testing out the Edge 11 that summer in 2019 and imaged quite a few different objects with it so wanted to stick with it rather than use another scope/camera combination. I have to say that the chip which I really like using is the KAF 16803 full frame chip which is square in shape and produces exquisite images. I’ve only used it remotely with iTelescope but I think I’ve produced some of my best images with it. However, its only really suited to large telescopes like their big Planewave CDK scopes because of vignetting issues so I have no plans to get one! Of course, CMOS cameras have become more popular recently, but I have little experience of using those so cannot really comment on them. Others have used them and produced excellent results.
Best wishes
Tim C
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Thank you Anna
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Thanks Trev
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Hi William
Thanks for your comments on my image and thanks for tracking down some of the fainter and more distant galaxies in it. Amazing to hear that one of them could be 2 billion light years away. Great to hear that one can see that far from Oxted! Re the Ha-alpha filter I used in the CCD camera, it’s a narrowband Baader 7nm filter.
Best wishes
Tim
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