Okay, another astro photo. This one was a little longer exposure, taken Saturday night/Sunday morning of the spiral galaxy M51 from my little property in Wonder Valley California:


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5DII with AP130GT (819mm f/6.3) with field flattener on Mach 1 GTO mount, autoguided (with orion short tube 80 + Starshoot autoguider)


I used 20 exposures, 10 minutes each. stacked with deep sky stacker and processed with DPP and Gimp Notice the smaller galaxy in the upper left. There are actually several others (including a very dim one close to the galaxy which I haven't been able to image before).


This picture pales compared to what the serious types are doing these days, but I think it is pretty cool what modern CCD technology makes possible for a goof-off like me who barely knows how to point the scope and press the shutter button []