Messier 51 - The Whirlpool Galaxy. Shot using a Meade LX200 10" @ f/7.15 using a SBIG ST-2000XM with SBIG AO7 unit. 95 minutes (19 x 5) luminance at 1x1 binned. 5 minutes for each RGB channel at 3x3 binned. RGB frames were from 3/8/05 without AO7 and were also shot at f/6.3. Image scale is .85 arcseconds per pixel. Acquired using CCDOps. Aligned and combined in CCDSoft 5. Dark and light frames applied. DDP applied in AstroArt 2.0. Guided by the SBIG AO7. Transparency was poor. Outside temp was approx. 70F when images were started and fell some into the 60's. First object shot using AO7. On this version I tried to better control the color channel noise and sharpness.