Data set for "Case study of developing an affordable undergraduate observatory" and image of M51 galaxy
A series of photographs taken of Messier object M51 the Whirlpool galaxy that can be combined to produce a final astro-photograh of M51 as shown in the associated research paper.
This data set contains the raw fits files needed to produce an astrophotograph of Galaxy M51 as shown in the associated paper. It includes bias frames, fark-frames, flat-frames, and exposures of M51 taken in LRGB filters. See individual file descriptions for LRGB wavelength ranges and fits file headers for exposure times etc.
Cite this dataset as:
Sloan, P.,
2023.
Data set for "Case study of developing an affordable undergraduate observatory" and image of M51 galaxy.
Bath: University of Bath Research Data Archive.
Available from: https://doi.org/10.15125/BATH-01225.
Export
Data
Darks.zip
application/zip (98MB)
Creative Commons: Attribution 4.0
Series of M51 darks taken to match the LRGB and Flat exposures.
Bias.zip
application/zip (87MB)
Creative Commons: Attribution 4.0
Bias frames
Flats.zip
application/zip (915MB)
Creative Commons: Attribution 4.0
Flat field images for each filter.
Red1.zip
application/zip (170MB)
Creative Commons: Attribution 4.0
Series of M51 exposures through a red filter, 589 to 696 nm.
Green1.zip
application/zip (173MB)
Creative Commons: Attribution 4.0
Series of M51 exposures through a green filter 491 to 573 nm
Blue1.zip
application/zip (171MB)
Creative Commons: Attribution 4.0
Series of M51 exposures through a blue filter 389 to 496 nm
Luminance1.zip
application/zip (1GB)
Creative Commons: Attribution 4.0
Series of M51 exposures through a luminance filter 398 to 696 nm
Creators
Peter Sloan
University of Bath
Contributors
University of Bath
Rights Holder
Documentation
Data collection method:
The headers of the fits files have all the required information to allow processing in the usual fashion. See fits headers for details of exposure times, dates collected, UTC time, pixels size etc. See file meta-data for details of filter wavelength ranges.
Technical details and requirements:
Files were combined using the free software DeepSkyStacker (DSS): http://deepskystacker.free.fr/english/index.html See DSS tutorial and help pages for how to combine the light-files with the calibrations files. The resulting LRGB master images were then combined using GIMP and various colour stretches to priduce a pleasing image.
Publication details
Publication date: 10 March 2023
by: University of Bath
Version: 1
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15125/BATH-01225
URL for this record: https://researchdata.bath.ac.uk/id/eprint/1225
Related papers and books
Scowcroft, V., Davies, S. R., Mathlin, G., and Sloan, P. A., 2023. Case study of developing an affordable undergraduate observatory. Physics Education, 58(3), 035014. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6552/acbf1b.
Contact information
Please contact the Research Data Service in the first instance for all matters concerning this item.
Contact person: Peter Sloan
Faculty of Science
Physics
Research Centres & Institutes
Centre for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology
