Hi All,
Just keeping my head above the water of late. Very little time to image so, please accept this measly offering of
M51 – Whirlpool Galaxy
The Whirlpool Galaxy (M51) resides in the constellation Canes Venatici. Its grand spiral structure contains numerous pink hues are active HII regions. The complex spiral bands are believed to be caused by its close companion NGC5195 (M51b), located above M51 as seen in the image. The Whirlpool Galaxy is approximately 23 million light years distant.
This image is a LLRGB composite consisting of 3.4 hours data (L:70min;R:45min,G:45min;B:45min) taken remotely from GRAS New Mexico. No idea why I continue to image with their TOA150 with ST10XME. I enjoy the focal length the set up delivers, but darn those blooms. I’m really tired of dealing with them. Dare I say it, but I’d be happy dealing with gradients. I suspect my subs are too long. 7-10min for lum and 3-5min for RGB. I like to go deep instead of take hundreds of subs to get a similar result. Anyway, this was a quick processing feat. Usual calibration, registration and combine in MaximDL, Registar. Luminance deconvoluted in CCDSharp – three iterations. I opted for a luminance layering approach to progressively build detail while still maintaining strong colour to minimise colour washout. Minor contrast adjustments, colour balance tweaks in PS along with some other “smoke and mirrors” activities. Background still too noisy for my liking, may revisit with fresh eyes. This is a crop of a slightly larger image.
Thanks for looking. Hope you enjoy it.
Cheers