Revisiting an old friend - M51 and its Ha cliffs

Image Title: DSC – Revisiting an old friend - M51 and its Ha cliffs

Copyright: Deep Sky Collective
Collaborators: Tim Schaeffer, Carl Björk, Steeve Body, Fabian Neyer, Aki Jain, Ryan Wierckx ,Paul Kent, Brian V., Antoine and Dalia Grelin, Nicolas Puig, Stephen Guberski, Mike Hamende, Julian Shapiro, John Dziuba, Mikhail Vasilev, Bogdan Borz, Adrien Keijzer

Date image was taken: July 19, 2024

Location (was image taken with remote scope?): Europe and USA

Image Description and Details: After the DSC’s first image release of the Whirlpool galaxy in August 2023, the group has made considerable progress  - be it by implementing new data-splits, stacking techniques or experience in handling these data-sets. Despite the image being a big success for us at the time, this year we felt that with this newly gained knowledge, a much better and detailed image of M51 can be created. With this in mind, our goals were set on improving with respect to our old image and potentially achieve results similar to those of professional observations.
Not only is this project a testament of how much a group can grow and learn within just over one year, but also yet again highlights how a group of amateurs with modest equipment can contribute to science.
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The Whirlpool galaxy, also known as Messier 51, is a galaxy located in the constellation Canes Venatici. It lies at a distance of roughly 23 million lightyears and spans some 80.000 ly in diameter.
M51 is a pretty popular target amongst astrophotographers as it has some very distinctive spiral arms which were first discovered by William Parson in 1845, also making it the first object where spiral arms were detected. Perhaps the most eye-catching feature though is the Ha-region next to M51 that we call Ha-cliffs. Knowing how challenging it is to photograph them from our first try, our team captured a staggering 383h of Ha at an average of 1300s per exposure in order to fully reveal the cliffs.

With the small FOV group of the DSC we started gathering data in late April and imaged for about 3 months, followed by 3 months of pre- and post-processing the data. We had a total of 17 people working on the project - 1 Editor, 1 Stacker , 16 photographers and myself coordinating (Stacker and myself also got data for the project) - in the end we managed to get a total of 531h47m of integration - the longest ever on this field. 

Before getting into any details in the picture, I want to thank everybody who contributed to this project. As always, it was a pleasure working together with everybody!

Tim Schaeffer, Carl Björk, Steeve Body, Fabian Neyer, Aki Jain, Ryan Wierckx ,Paul Kent, Brian V., Antoine and Dalia Grelin, Nicolas Puig, Stephen Guberski, Mike Hamende, Julian Shapiro, John Dziuba, Mikhail Vasilev, Bogdan Borz, Adrien Keijzer

For a more detailed write-up and full resolution of the image, be sure to check out our website: https://deepskycollective.com/home
And our astrobin post: https://www.astrobin.com/5nb17v/

Two different Versions: HaLRGB and LRGB, both edited by Steeve

We hope you enjoy this one!

Equipment Details: Telescopes: AG Optical FA12 12.5 inch F5 , Askar 130PHQ , Astro-Physics StarFire EDFS 130mm f/6 , Planewave CDK17 , Sky-Watcher Esprit 150ED , Sky-Watcher Quattro 250P / 10-S , Sky-Watcher Quattro 8CF , Stellarvue SVX130T , Takahashi FSQ-106EDX4 , Takahashi TOA-150 , TEC APO140ED , TS-Optics 200mm/8" ONTC f/4.5 Newtonian (carbon tube) , TS-Optics 200mm/8" ONTC f/4 Newtonian (carbon tube) , TS-Optics 250mm/10" ONTC f/4 Newtonian (carbon tube) , TS-Optics ED 102mm f/7

Cameras: Player One Ares-M Pro , Player One Poseidon-M Pro , QHYCCD QHY268 M , QHYCCD QHY600PH M , RisingCam IMX571 , ZWO ASI1600MM , ZWO ASI2600MM Pro , ZWO ASI294MM Pro , ZWO ASI461MM Pro , ZWO ASI6200MM Pro

Email: Tim.Schaeffer30@gmail.com

Website or Facebook Profile: http://deepskycollective.com/home