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Well, probably smaller than M51 but unrelated in the sense that NGC 5195 is an independent galaxy that happens to be interacting with M51 due to its proximity.

The Whirlpool Galaxy (aka M51) is a spiral galaxy 31 million light-years from Earth. NGC 5195 is the small, yellowish galaxy at the outermost tip of one of the arms which appears to be tugging on the arm, the tidal forces from which trigger new star formation. NGC 5195 has been gliding past...

It only has to go to Torrance and it will be delivered today. No idea how long it will take them to service it. I've heard nightmare stories about people with RASA scopes that took 2+ years to get back. I'm hoping that won't be the case for me. The range of 600mm to 1400mm is a bit of a...

Thanks, Jim. But now I'm going to do what all professional artisans tell you to never do - I'm going to point out flaws. The brighter stars all have anomolous flaring and refraction spikes that should not be present with an EdgeHD: I ran tests in my yard, methodically removing/replacing one...

After being thwarted by bad weather for over 6 months, I finally got an opportunity to try out my new EdgeHD 8 on the Pinwheel Galaxy last night. I lost a lot of subs due to fog and a dropped USB connection to the mount, but still captured 78 good subs to stack. The Pinwheel Galaxy (aka M101)...

Jim, Welcome to the dark side - may you never use your DSLR lenses for astro work again! Your stars appear nice and round, even in the corners, but it's hard to get a close look with the low res JPG in the post. So your APO looks like it has a good flat field. The colors are vibrant and...

Normally, it can be seen when you zoom in but in your image it sort of disappears when you zoom in, getting lost in the overall noise. But if you look at the image without zooming in, you can see linear patterns running diagonally along the 11 o'clock/5 o'clock axis.

Hi Jim, Not bad for your light-polluted area. But I see a lot of "walking noise" in the image. Did you dither?

The Elephant's Trunk Nebula is a concentration of interstellar gas and dust within a much larger ionized gas region about 2,400 light years away. There's a dark patch with a bright, sinuous rim which is the surface of the dense cloud that is being illuminated and ionized by a very bright...

The Eastern Veil Nebula (aka NGC 6992) is the eastern half of a supernova remnant about 1400 light-years away. This debris cloud was blasted out from the cataclysmic explosion of a dying star (supernova) over 10,000 years ago. The interstellar shock wave plows through space sweeping up and...

Safe travels, Jim. Hope to see you in the fall when we have clear, dark, dry skies!

Thanks, Jim. We had excellent conditions at TDS last Saturday night and my tracking was in the range of 0.50"-0.56" all night. That's probably the best I've ever achieved.

Very nice, Jim!

The Western Veil or "Witch's Broom" Nebula (aka NGC 6960) is a supernova remnant about 1400 light-years away. This debris cloud was blasted out from the cataclysmic explosion of a dying star (supernova) over 10,000 years ago. The interstellar shock wave plows through space sweeping up and...

No ETA on the EdgeHD 8 yet - they are saing it could be the end of the year. I'm also considering a new mount, but we'll see...

The Eage Nebula (aka M16) is about 7000 light years away. It contains several active star-forming gas and dust regions and was made famous as the "Pillars of Creation" image taken by the Hubble telescope (https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/the-pillars-of-creation). If my new telecope ever...

I took 1500 images last Sundary night and spent most of the week stacking and processing them to generate a result that I was finally happy with.

These 2 videos explain calibration very well. They also answer the questions about flat darks and bias frames: https://www.youtube....annel=AdamBlock https://www.youtube....annel=AdamBlock Adam Block is an astrophotogaphy post-processing legend. The videos are primarily aimed at...

Great start, Jim! Glad to be of assistance Friday night - it's always rewarding to be able to help solve problems. Your ASI2600MC will certainly capture a lot more of the red and near-infrared than your unmodded DSLR. I had the same issue when I was using my DSLR and that was one of the two...

The Whirlpool Galaxy (aka M51) is a target that's a bit too small for my current equipment, but worth shooting anyway. It's a spiral galaxy 31 million light-years from Earth. NGC 5195 is the small, yellowish galaxy at the outermost tip of one of the arms which appears to be tugging on the arm...