M51




	M51 or NGC5194- The Whirlpool Galaxy in the constellation Canes Venatici. Fascinating and compelling spiral structure, with compaction and distortion from the interaction with the smaller galaxy NGC 5195 at the tail. The result is an abundance of star formation seen in the bluer spiral arms. More galaxy specifics can be found here. Click on the image above for a slightly larger rendition
	Image Technical Details: Dates: March-June 2007 Optical system: Cave Astrola newtonian 10" f/7 1778mm. (what is a Cave Astrola newtonian?) Mount: Paramount ME Camera: SBIG ST8XME; CFW9 filter wheel; Astrodon Series E LRGB filters Acquisition data: Luminance 23 x 20min; R 39 X 15min; G 40 X 15min; B 47 X 15min; all fames unbinned (1 x 1); Image scale 1.04 arc sec/ pixel; Average FWHM 2.9 arc sec over all frames; Light box flat frames Software: CCDsoft v5/ The Sky 6 for acquisition; CCDsoft v5 for calibration; CCDstack for alignment and stacking; Photoshop CS for processing. Other info: LCD monitor calibrated with Spyder2 Pro Comments: this is a work in progress. I will continue to post updates as I work through the processing end of close to 40 hours of data!
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