Too close for comfort: M51 - 08/07/2024
Hello! Let's take a look at things not working out.. and not in an obvious way too! On the night I imaged Saturn , I also tried imaging the Whirlpool Galaxy - one of if not THE favorite target of mine! It's not really a difficult target, be it to find or photograph.. I mean, I took a cool image of it years ago back when I was doing pretty much everything wrong! But anyway, I was still waiting for my OnStep kit to arrive and was super curious about trying out the ZWO asi462mm camera, as this was my first time experiencing a dedicated astrocam and I couldn't use it for guiding until OnStep arrived anyway.. I checked, and the Whirlpool Galaxy fit in my FOV just about perfectly! screenshot from https://astronomy.tools/calculators/field_of_view/ It wasn't gonna be easy to locate with the telescope, and at that super narrow FOV of course I had to get a really dope polar alignment and had to pay attention so that it doesn't drift out of frame.. But I managed to do that! ...