Monday, April 11, 2011

Whirlpool Galaxy


For the first time for quite a long time I set up my Skywatcher 80ED and Canon 350d camera to try to image some deep space objects. On Saturday night the sky was clear and it was warm outside as well. A lovely night!

At first I tried to image with the Orion Nebula as Orion was sinking into the western sky. Next I pointed the scope at M51 Whirlpool Galaxy. This was very high, almost at azimuth, so I wasn't sure if the mount would allow it to track at such a height. Surprisingly, it tracked without a problem.

I then took 30 subs at 30 seconds each. I think I needed more subs really, but the battery on the camera began to die. The image was stacked with Deepsky Stacker and processed in Photoshop. I think that I may be able to improve the image with some patience!

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