John Chumack _Observatories
M51 The Whirlpool Galaxy - Colliding Galaxies
M51 The Whirlpool Spiral Galaxy also known as NGC-5194,
Two colliding Galaxies in the Constellation of Canes Venatici,
a few degrees from the end star in handle of the Big Dipper.
The smaller companion that M51 is colliding with is called NGC-5195.
M51 sits at 23 Million Light Years away.
I processed it to show the faint tidal tail structure details!
I can see several dust lane structures running through the tidal tail as well as faint background galaxies behind the tidal tail!
This is a 17.5 hour exposure of M51, over 7 seperate nights in early 2010, 2011.
taken with my Homemade 16" F4.5 Newtonian Scope,
Using a QHY8 Cooled CCD camera and a modified Canon Rebel Xsi DSLR camera, data from both cameras were used, and both employed a celestron coma corrector and Astronomiks CLS filter employed.
Calibrated Bias, Darks, Flats, Darks for flats, in Deep Sky Stacker via Sigma Reject, both camera data sets were combined and resized to match in Maxim DL, initially color balanced in Nebulosity, Gradient XT was used to remove Light pollution Gradients, Luminance Layered and final color balance in Adobe.
Luminence Data (QHY8) 4 hours(240 minutes)
Hydrogen Alpha Data (QHY8) 3.5 hours(210 minutes)
RGB Data = modified Baader Canon Rebel Xsi 10 hours(600 minutes)
210 light sub frames captured, Total 17.5 hours of exposure.
This is my best and most detailed image of M51 to date, and now my longest exposure on a single object.
definitely a lot of work, but I now feel it was worth all the processing time, which actually exceeded the 17.5 hours of imaging time!
Best Regards,
John Chumack
M51 The Whirlpool Galaxy - Colliding Galaxies
M51 The Whirlpool Spiral Galaxy also known as NGC-5194,
Two colliding Galaxies in the Constellation of Canes Venatici,
a few degrees from the end star in handle of the Big Dipper.
The smaller companion that M51 is colliding with is called NGC-5195.
M51 sits at 23 Million Light Years away.
I processed it to show the faint tidal tail structure details!
I can see several dust lane structures running through the tidal tail as well as faint background galaxies behind the tidal tail!
This is a 17.5 hour exposure of M51, over 7 seperate nights in early 2010, 2011.
taken with my Homemade 16" F4.5 Newtonian Scope,
Using a QHY8 Cooled CCD camera and a modified Canon Rebel Xsi DSLR camera, data from both cameras were used, and both employed a celestron coma corrector and Astronomiks CLS filter employed.
Calibrated Bias, Darks, Flats, Darks for flats, in Deep Sky Stacker via Sigma Reject, both camera data sets were combined and resized to match in Maxim DL, initially color balanced in Nebulosity, Gradient XT was used to remove Light pollution Gradients, Luminance Layered and final color balance in Adobe.
Luminence Data (QHY8) 4 hours(240 minutes)
Hydrogen Alpha Data (QHY8) 3.5 hours(210 minutes)
RGB Data = modified Baader Canon Rebel Xsi 10 hours(600 minutes)
210 light sub frames captured, Total 17.5 hours of exposure.
This is my best and most detailed image of M51 to date, and now my longest exposure on a single object.
definitely a lot of work, but I now feel it was worth all the processing time, which actually exceeded the 17.5 hours of imaging time!
Best Regards,
John Chumack