Friday night I finished shooting an interactive galaxy pair, The Whirlpool. These two galaxies are literally running into eachother, feeding off eachother and spewing stellar matter into the universe.
This is my first time shooting M51, or the Whirlpool. When the first of the many images started showing up on my screen, I was awestruck.
This is the first image completed with my new scope, a Skywatcher MN190 Mak Newt. Mak Newt designs aren't very popular for some reason, but I don't know why. They are a blend of refractor and reflector and are the best of both worlds. Both visually and image wise, mak newts perform as good as the equivalent size APO refractor, but with even less false color. This is a 7.5" mak newt. I bought it on sale for $1350. An equivalent sized APO Refractor costs between $15,000-$20,000.
After seeing what this scope can do, I think I am going to really like it!
Anyway, here is M51, or the Whirpool, shot for a total of 224 minutes. I am going to eventually shoot even more subs of this since the more information you gather, the sharper, more detailed and less grainy the image gets.
Here's the time breakdown per filter
Lum: 64 minutes
Red: 32 minutes
Green: 48 minutes
Blue: 45 minutes
H-Alpha: 35 minutes
And here is a photo of the setup
