M51 The Whirlpool Galaxy
I pushed my FSQ to f/8 with the Extender-Q 1.6x for this one. I was my first attempt with this setup because I was having a lot of tracking issues with my G11. I was getting an average RMS of 1.5″ and peaks of 4″. Not great at f/8! After a full clean and relube, lots of fiddling, and adjustment of the worms (boy, was that part frustrating), I now have it down to an RMS of (mostly) just under 0.5″ and peaks of 1.5″….
My first try at processing this came out with a lot of noise, bad color balance, and bad background gradients because I seem to have messed up my flats. This version was a re-process with no flats, which still produced some strong gradients, but they were much easier to filter out in PixInsight. I’m pretty happy with the color and detail now, and I am really impressed with the Extender-Q and the performance of the FSQ at f/8. Next (if I ever see good weather again) I’m going to try for M81/M82 with this setup.
