M51 Whirlpool Galaxy in LRGB

[Bassnut]

Hi Guys

M51 Whirlpool Galaxy LRGB 50:25:25:25 mins L bin1 RGB bin2, all 5 min sub exposures.

Taken on GRAS G5. Tak Epsilon 250 10" OTA at f3.4, PME and ST10XME (cropped).

http://fredsastro.googlepages.com/home

A striking Galaxy that is very photogenic, a pleasure to image.

[AlexN]

Nice! those GRAS remote scopes are great for adding more targets to your picture gallery...

A quick question.. At what (if any) time of the year is M51 an achievable target for austrailian astrophotographers?

[Alchemy]

very nice fred, had a squiz at your other images there (love the M8 Ha), couple nice helix's plus a bunch of other goodies . Big thumbs up:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[Garyh]

Beaut colors Fred!
A lovely GRAS image!
:thumbsup:

[Karlsson]

One of the best M51 images I have seen...!:thumbsup:



Try tonight around 20:00 - but even then 15° altitude is as good as its gets in Bris

[strongmanmike]

Bet a few years ago you wouldn't have dreamed you would be imaging M51 for yourself (well sort of :whistle:)..?

Nice work Freddo

[AlexN]

15deg tonight... :) no chance in brisbane :P

[skeltz]

Nice image there fred,remote imagings a great thing thats for sure.

[Dietmar]

very nice job Fred!
the colors look very well balanced! details are also very cool!

[Bassnut]

I have to ask this question for the NH every time I try, I have a 2nd Starry nights file just for this, something to get used to, but I dont mind ;).



Thanks, Im glad you like them, I dont know if the format is ideal, but a quick scroll seems easier than mutiple thumbnail gallery selections (for the few pics I have).



Thanks Gary, but I processed it :D.



15 deg is tricky, atmospherics would hurt :P



Thanks Mike, I know you think mega data is silly ;), but I sure would have liked more, couldve sharpened it right up.



It still feels like cheating, but Im getting over that :). Its the only way I can image NH, so why not :whistle:.



I tried not to mess too much with colour balance this time. Using Jases M51 as a reference kept me on track :thumbsup:

[Tamtarn]

Great to see a different galaxy posted. Colour balance looks spot on and oh such a smooooth image :thumbsup:

[iceman]

Wow that's stunning Fred, very nice work.

[Bassnut]

Thanks Dave/Barb, Mike . I hope to get a few other NH delights posted too. There are many nice galaxys up that way.

[jase]

Don't use my image as a reference. I'm colour blind and wear R,G,B filtered glasses.:P Great work Sir Fred. I would have expected more detail from the Epsilon given its aperture. Well done. Good to see you use some other scopes out there.

[Bassnut]

Thanks Jase. It was frustrating not being able to sharpen up more, shouldve got more exposure time.

[Ric]

A fine detailed image Fred, the colours are very natural and balanced.

Top shot

[Robert_T]

Very fetching view indeed:thumbsup: The dust lanes are really prominent in the "satellite" galaxy, a feature I haven't noticed before. Thought you'd picked up a faint outer spiral arm as well, but turned out to be a finger smear on my notebook screen:D

[Bassnut]

Thanks Ric and Rob. Not being used to RGB, colour was a struggle, despite Jases protest, his M51 was a handy reference.

I had trouble with the satellite galaxy dust lanes, thought I was over processing until I just found this by Ken Crawford, it really is an odd shape.

http://rdelsol.com/Galaxy/M51_LRGB_FC3.jpg

Wouldnt you kill for an image like this ;-).

[renormalised]

I can get M51 at around 22-24º above the horizon... tonight's about as good as it gets, but it's a little cloudy here in the nth part of the sky, so it's not worth trying to image it.

[Bassnut]

OH god, WHY do I BOTHER ????

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080614.html

:jawdrop::jawdrop::jawdrop::jawdrop ::jawdrop:

[renormalised]

You too would do that well, if you had a 2.4 metre wide mirror in your scope and it was in an orbit 400 or so kms up!!!!!. But we all don't have a spare few billion dollars to own one!!:D:P

[renormalised]

Fred, look at it this way. Hubble cost about $5billion and it's a 2.4metre mirror floating 600kms up. Considering the resolution of both images, I think yours is the better one. That Tak epsilon is about 50000 times cheaper than the Hubble and has about 1/10 as large a mirror. Pretty damn good effort if I might say so!!!:D:D

[gregbradley]

Hey hey hey what's this Fred?? A wide field shot???

Are you becoming a covert wide field imager? hehehe

Nice image by the way!

Greg.

[Bassnut]

Gendler gets to fiddle with the processing though, lucky sod. Imagine renting time on that mother, wonder if you get a discount for megadata (not that youd need it) :P

Well Greg, sometimes you have to swallow your pride and go WAY down down the ladder to get a different shot :rolleyes:. Thanks :).

[Peter Ward]

' cos it feels good when you stop banging your head against the counterweight shaft ??? :)

[Bassnut]

LOL, you dont know how true that is, punk :lol:

I do find PME stainless steel weights much more satisfing hurridley contacting the celebral area though, and it doesnt seem to bother it one bit (the PME). The G11 on the other hand always needs realigning after such an awespicious event.

[jase]

Congrats on the image of the week Fred.:)

[Bassnut]

Lucky I got in before your Dumbell post Jase ;)

[Jen]

:clap::clap::clap:
nice pic i needed a change on my desktop :P:D
cheers