CCD vs Film? Lots of time vs no patience? Alright, this is your place to discuss all the astrophotography what's and what's not. You can discuss about techniques, accessories, cameras, whatever....just make sure you also post some nice photos here too!
M51 is an object every astro-imager will at one time or the other want to shoot.
Its most striking feature is the two curving arms, a hallmark of the so-called grand-design spiral galaxies.
M51 graceful arms are particularly striking and are laced with many stars giving it a majestic and spiral whirlpool shape.
The M51 whirlpool's arms are rather prominent because it appears to be pulling at NGC 5195, a small, yellowish galaxy at the outermost tip of one of its arms.
But for all we know, NGC 5195 could far far behind M51.
Exposure : LRGB 4 x 5 mins; using short FL scope.
M51 is better to be imaged with longer focal length of 1000mm or longer.
"The importance of a telescope is not how big it is, how well made it is.
It is how many people, less fortunate than you, got to look through it."
-- John Dobson.
jawdrop nice M51 beginner Sir, nice IC 4263 at 1.00 o'clock position, nice IC 5169 at the right edge, it looks fat & distinct although small. Very good details resulted from combined Luminance component, RGB ratio just nice (perfect to me), solid mount with accurate guiding (just look at the stars, Wah !!!), about 98 X better than my M51 taken with EQ3-2 manual mount, i think i'll never achieve this standard (can't afford this configuration of Mid / large sized Cooled CCD & Accurate but expensive mount - not because of skill (good excuse huh ?) the scope used is not so critical here, as long as from reputed manufacturer, for example William Optics will do, not necessarily a Tak), i had observed the core of this object electronically, using a fast camera lens attached to an integration video cam, great fun object, very good surface brightness amongst the dim objects ...
n.b. To date, as i am using a Vixen GPD2 Equatorial mount for Imaging casually, i have not optimize it either by switching on the PEC record / playback function nor activating the guiding function, if i use them with my Canon 500D properly cooled, i think i can get to about one quarter to half as good as this... (so, guiding is a must - see attached PEC comparison reports)
Last edited by PETER LOO on Sun Mar 31, 2013 7:40 am, edited 3 times in total.
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