Hi,
trust me: I have no idea what happened here. I didn't expect such a result given my experience so far, the light polluted sky, the unmodded camera, the small aperture, the presence of the moon...!
These are 17x300" shots of M51 at ISO400 with the Skywatcher ED80 and the Canon 450D on the HEQ5.
Click here -->
M51, 100% crop
Given that I imaged M31 and M33 when I still was a total newbie, this ended up being what I consider my best galaxy so far
Thoughts?