M51 "Whirlpool"

Apr 15th, 2020

8 h 3 m

I barely managed to capture color. More precisely, with a full Moon (red channel), with mediocre atmosphere (blue channel). I got lucky with green—there was good sky, no Moon, but streetlights were on. However, streetlights are a minor issue compared to other troubles. The luminance channel is synthesized from the color channels. Scale 75%.

Apr 10th, 2020

3 h 12 m

The result of imaging over two nights. April 6, 2020 (during the full Moon), and April 9, 2020 (the Moon was no longer full, rose later, and was positioned much lower above the horizon, thus interfering less). A total of 64 frames at 180 seconds each were captured. Total integration time: 3 hours 12 minutes. North is up. Scale 70%. Pixel scale: 3.53 arcsec/pixel.