AMATEUR ASTRONOMY SITE
Javier Gómez Laina                                                                                    M51  in  Canes Venatici

Object	M51         -  face-on spiral galaxy  -
Telescope	Celestron C-8 203mm  f6.3     TeleVue 76 guide telescope & QuickCam.
CCD	Starlight MX716 CCD camera. Astronomik  RGB filters.
Exposures	L	R	G	B
	204'  unfiltered  (204 x 60")	31'  (31x60")	37'  (37x60")	61'  (61x60")
Date	14 & 27 May 2005	8 May 2005
Processing	Flats, Darks & Bias calibration and aligning  in AIPWin.  Combining in Ray Gralak's Sigma-Clip.  Deconvolution in AstroArt with Robert Vanderbei's  plug-in.  RGB combine in Maxim DL. PhotoShop: Curves Adjusts.  Jerry Lodriguss' Layer Mask method for avoiding sobre-exposure on galaxy core. L (50% opacity) and RGB layers,  gaussian blur and color saturation. PixInsight: Gradient removal. Final image:  LLRGB layers.