Finally, a clear sky!

With the skies not cooperating very much this year, getting a nice clear night with fairly steady atmosphere is rare, and you have to grab the opportunity when you can. Easter Sunday evening was one of those nights.

I had spent most of the good evenings, up to Sunday, adjusting my equipment and software and now I am ready for some serious astrophotography. This image of the Whirlpool Galaxy (M51) is a 34 minute exposure taken as 17 x 120sec sub-frames (details can be found on my Astrobin page). In the next few weeks I plan on adding additional subs to bring out more detail.


Whirlpool Galaxy