An astounding amount of detail can be seen in this image of Messier 51 taken with a small refractor. I captured the data for this image in April 2009 and April 2010. As an added challenge be sure to shoot from underneath the streetlamp in front of one's house (as I did!). :)
18 hours LRGB + 9 hours Ha. Red and Ha were combined into a single synthetic Red channel. Captured with MaximDL and ACP. Processed in PixInsight.
Instrument: 111 mm Astrotech triplet refractor (Moonlite focuser) on a Losmandy Gemini G-11 mount. FLI ML8300 Camera, Astronomik Filters. Astrotech 2" field flattener, and WO FLT field Flattener.
