M101 - The Pinwheel Galaxy in Ursa Major
with 10" f/3.9 Astrograph
Uploaded 5/14/23

 

            
This final image is
            the results of shooting this single subject for every clear night
            for just over two months. A total of 20 hours integration time
            was obtained. The goal here was to get decent detail on the main
            disk, with the extremely faint outer tendrills well recorded.
            I just kept exposing night after night until the outer most arms
            were noise free. Indeed, they even contain some blue star clouds
            and OB associations within them. A natural color balance was
            maintained here, unlike many you see on the internet with hiddeously
            blown out cores and garrish jet black dust lanes!

            
Although our fast newtonian
            and large format CCD camera has too large of a field for smaller
            galaxies, this illustrates that I can still get fair images of
            the largest few.

            
Select an image size for a larger view:

1600 x 1290


Instrument:  10" f/3.9 Orion Astrograph Newtonian with Baader MPCC
Mount:  Astrophysics 1200 QMD
CCD Camera:  ATIK 16200 
Guider: ASI120  w/80mm WO Zenithstar 81 piggyback refractor
Exposure:  20 hours total   L=12, RGB=4, Ha=4
Astronomik  RGB Combine Ratio:  1: 0.9: 2
Location:  Payson, Arizona, Elevation:  5150 ft.
Sky:  Seeing FWHM = 3 arcsec , Transparency 8/10
Outside Temperature:  55 F
CCD Temperature:  -30 C
Image Processing Tools: 
Maxim DL6:  Calibration, PixInsight:  All Remaining processing, Production finishing: Photoshop CS2

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