M51 - The Whirlpool Galaxy or "Lessons Learned - Part 2"

14 April 2018

As stated in the article for my last attempt to photograph M51 I bought some additional gear (Bahtinov Mask, lens heater) to improve my results. I also made sure that my camera doesn't block my finder scope so that I can check my polar alignment aver having all set up.

But there was one thing I didn't mention in my last article and which should cause me some headaches for at least 15 minutes: The first thing after setting up your sky tracker needs to be switching it on. I forgot that and kept wondering why my stars have a strong egg-shape despite being sure that my polar alignment is (or at least has been) pretty good.

Well I eventually got that figured out and came up with the image above.