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Captured by
Douglas Rollain

Southern Milkyway (Canon t1i)

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Alkaid Mizar Alcor and m51 image

Alkaid Mizar Alcor and m51

Contains: Deep sky object
Acquisition Details
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  • CMI/CMII/CMIII:
Description

Hope the whole photo fits in the frame provided: Alkaid, the tip of the tail of the Big Dipper is to the center left, Mizar/Alcor double at the lower right, and m51 whirlpool galaxy to the lower left. This is a 1-minute livestack from SharpCap using a ZWO ASI294MC-pro camera at 10 degrees C, 50mm Canon FD lens with custom adapter at f4, and polar-aligned Ioptron skytracker on tripod. The actual 4144x2116 image includes about twice the field of this uploaded image, but then the stars are so tiny they aren't appreciated as much unless viewed at significant image magnification. The dyanamic range of this camera is remarkable, showing these main stars of the big dipper at reasonable brightness while able to see m51, at the same histogram settings during live capture, exposure/gain/black point/mid-point. The16-bit raw format used in Sharpcap provides over 65,000 brightness levels in the same image at the same settings.

  • User details
  • Ron Masters
  • Ron Masters
  • November 8, 2015