This project is the Whirlpool Galaxy. It’s a galaxy that’s about 31 million light years away. In our sky it’s located close to the big dipper in the northern sky. The main galaxy here is currently merging with another smaller galaxy seen at the end of one of it’s spiral arms.
Here is the big picture of M51 and area around it. There are a few galaxies in here. Some are tiny in this view. In the upper right there are a few galaxies that are further away from us. I’ve zoomed into this area on the next image below this one.
Here is a closeup of the farther away galaxies on the upper right of the image above.
Below is an image of M51 with added Hydrogen Alpha data highlighting nebula in the M51 galaxy, just like nebula in some of my other projects. M51’s nebula show up as pink dots in this image.
Now I will show what individual channels look like when I capture them with each filter and stack each channel to get LRGB and Ha. Honestly on LRGB Ha channels will look almost the same but when combined they show the true colors of the objects and stars.
First up is the Luminance channel. This is the detail channel.
Here is the Red Channel.
Here is the Green Channel.
Here is the Blue Channel.
And finally here is the Hydrogen Alpha Channel.
Capture information below:
Camera: ZWO 294MM Pro
Mount: EQ6R Pro
Telescope: Astrotech 115 EDT
Field flattener: Hotech Flattener
Guided with Astromania 60mm guide scope
Guide camera: ZWO Asi 120mm-s
Gain: 120
Offset: 30
Sensor Temperature: -10C
CLSCCD: 101 @120s
Red: 30 @120s
Green: 29 @120s
Blue: 25 @120s
Ha: 50 @240s
Integration time: 8.6 hours
Flats: 50/filter
Dark Flats: 50/filter
Darks: 50/filter
Captured by NINA
Polar aligned by SharpCap
Stacked and processed by Pixinsight