M51 and NGC 5195 13/04/07 - Eric Walker

This image, taken on (Friday 13th April no less) captures the spiral galaxy M51 in Canes Venatici along with galaxy NGC 5195. It is thought that the interaction between the two galaxies caused the irregular shape of NGC 5195 and has created areas of star formation within M51. The image was captured using a Meade LX50 8" SCT telescope with f3.3 focal reducer, Meade Deep Sky Imager Pro, and Meade AutoStar Envisage software. Images processed using FITS Liberator in Adobe Photoshop CS, and Neatimage. A Haartman mask was used to achieve perfect focus. www.astrophotos.plus.com