M51 – The Whirlpool Galaxy

Here is another reprocessed image of mine from 2020! This is the whirlpool galaxy, also known as M51. It's one of the main galaxies photographed during Galaxy season and is located near the Big Dipper. In the highlighted image, you'll see a quasar of magnitude 20 highlighted in the top of the image. This is the furthest deep sky object I've ever captured at 11 billion light years away (shout out to Erik Pirtala for showing me this quasar back in March with his image of M51). I'm still patiently awaiting my camera's return, but I think it should be done this week! Hopefully I'll get back out for some imaging ASAP. I hope y'all enjoy this image and the cool quasar too :)

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Orion 8" Astrograph

Celestron AVX

Skywatcher Quattro Coma Corrector

Stock Nikon D5500

 

Subs from 4/15/20

70 x 180s lights @ ISO 200

No Darks

20 Flats

100 Bias

Total Integration Time: 3.5 hrs

Done