M 101

[Jim McMillan]

Hi all,

We've had a rare stretch of 3 clear nights in Cleveland. Of course, it happened when there's a full moon. Oh well! I aimed at something about as far from it as I could and did 104, 10-min exposures - e.g. about 17 1/3 hr. While not ideal conditions with a bright moon, I think I got reasonably deep. Of interest was looking at the difference in results between night 1, night 1+2, and night 1+2+3. Going from ~6 hrs to ~12 hrs not only reduces the noise, but also adds to some of the detail. Going from ~12 to ~17 hrs didn't add much to the detail, but did reduce the noise a little bit further.

I processed this on a laptop, so the black levels may be off a bit. Anyway, here's the result.

Jim