M51, The Whirlpool Galaxy.is located 31 million light years from The Milky Way Galaxy in the constellation Canes Venatica. I think it is one of the most dramatic Galaxies in the night sky. Tonight the 26th February at around midnight the conditions for imaging were almost perfect. The temperature was just below freezing, there was no wind, and just a  small amount of moisture in the atmosphere. I have an alignment model of three stars and M51 was inside that model which means that I have no problem in locating this image.

PHD Guiding software is so easy to calibrate and use, and the new QHY5 guide camera is a great improvement on my previous modified Philips Toucam. I chose 5 minute images @ ISO 1600 with the Canon 40D and the F/8 Ritchey Cretien Astrograph. The higher ISO setting shows the Canon`s sensitivity without too much noise. The little noise there was is easily dealt with in Photoshop. I set a limit to 15 seperate exposures and completed the imaging session with taking 20 Dark images.

This image is the results of subtracting the Dark images from the 15 stacked Light images..Processing was done in Images Plus with an initial stretch and final levels and curves in Photoshop. A pleasing result.