It’s been a lovely clear warm day and tonight’s forecast is near perfect. Objective is to take another run at M51, using Roger M’s image as a yardstick. Rotated both the camera and focal reducer 90° to better center the galaxies. Using the existing flat even though it is uneven along the edges when stretched significantly. The moon is down and the lower shutter is in place. Tried the normal 3 minute exposure but the galaxy core seems to be wiping out, so dropped to 1 minute exposure.
The sky is dark. The air is still and comfortable in the mid 60s.
Out at 20:00 but imaging run didn’t start until 21:20 and 184 exposures were collected by 00:34. The scope does little jumps once in a while, perhaps because it’s over on its back. So before post processing all 184 frames were examined visually, with 20 being discarded.
- M51 for monitor viewing s.jpg (1.35 MiB) Viewed 534 times
21:20 – 00:34 hrs, 21/22 May 2022
164 X 1 minute, 2X binning, -10C cooling, 120 gain, 5 sec guiding
14” Meade LX200 GPS at f/6.3 with ASI2600MC-p camera and Optolong LP-P filter.
This is one of the top dozen deep sky objects when it comes to visual interest and it’s needed for the art festival. It’s not Hubble quality, nor is it even Roger M quality, but it’s Pete quality, and much better than the last M51 capture on 11 June 2021.
