Date: March 18, 2001

Exposure(s): 15 Min, 20 Min, 40 Min

Film: Kodak Elite Chrome 200

Equipement: 10" f/10 Meade OTA w/Celestron f/6.3 focal reducer on Losmandy G-11

Guide Scope: ETX90 OTA and SBIG ST-4

Hardware & Software: (Update) The each exposure above was rescanned 8 times with the HP S20xi film scanner and Hamrick Software's VueScan, The scans were then digitally stacked using Registar and then processed and cropped using Picture Window Pro.

Info: M51, also called the Whirlpool Galaxy is at a distance of 50 million light years. This image is not an example of good focus or tracking, as tracking problems were still a problem at that time with my G-11. What IS notable here is that a great amount of faint detail can STILL be extracted from film under light polluted conditions.

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