Imaging M51 with a CCD camera

Compare the 2 following images (captured April 10th):

 M51, single 5minute exposure, binned 2x2. This is an unguided image, and shows how well the mount was tracking. 

Second M51 image is being re-processed.

Overall, you can see that the 5minute single exposure has about the same amount of detail as the stacked 25min exposure. This is primarily due to the fact that the CCD was binned to 2x2, and CCD pixel noise averages out nicely with a cooled CCD. Also the SNR for a single 5minute exposure is much higher than a single 150 second exposure.

Chris Summitt, a friend, fellow optical engineer and photographer, joined in the fun and took some landscape astro-photos. You can find more of Chris's work at his website:

http://chrissummitt.com