The Whirlpool Galaxy, also known as Messier 51a (M51a) or NGC 5194, is an interacting grand-design spiral galaxy with a Seyfert 2 active galactic nucleus. Situated in the constellation Canes Venatici, it holds the distinction of being the first galaxy classified as a spiral galaxy. The Whirlpool Galaxy is located 7.22 megaparsecs (23.5 million light-years) away from Earth and has a diameter of 23.58 kiloparsecs (76,900 light-years).  Details: 279 x 10-second subs from, 04-05 May 2024.  The below images have been process with Siril and GraXpert.

Object: M51

Location: Portsmouth, UK

Mount: Alt Az

Bortle Scale: 7

Total Session Time: 10 Minutes

Nights:       04-05th May 2024

Total Subs Used: 279 x 10 Subs

Seeing:  High Cloud

Fits Stacked: Siril 

Post-Processing Steps

1. GraXpert - Background extraction and Denoise v2.0 

2. Siril - color calibration, photometric color calibration,remove green noise, color calibration, histogram stretch, colour saturation.