Re: [APML] M51 Halo

[Robert Reeves <reeves10@swbell.net>]

> Some time ago there was one of those great debates about the
> extent of the M51 halo.  A similar discussion was in full swing on
> SBIG until Gary Stevens posted this outstanding image:
>
> http://home.earthlink.net/~gstevens914/pm51w.htm
>
> Case closed.
>
>
>
>
> Mike Cook, AF9Y

This reminds me very much of an incident that happened at the Texas Star
Party about 10 years ago.  A fellow amateur from San Antonio, Tim Tynan,
took about a 40 minute exposure of M-51 at TSP through a Meade 10-inch SCT
and had it developed at a one-hour lab in Alpine, Texas.  For some reason,
the print was left on the stage in the auditorium on Saturday night.  The
guest speaker, some high-powered professional astronomer (I forget exactly
who) happened upon this simple one-hour lab print and stared at it just agog
with his eyes wide open.  He muttered something about the long debate about
the bridge between the two components of M-51, and here in this amateur shot
of the galaxy was hard evidence of the bridge that was so heavily debated.
Lets face it, there are folks here on APML that sometimes outshoot the
professional astronomers.

Robert Reeves                      reeves10@swbell.net
520 Rittiman Rd.                   www.robertreeves.com
San Antonio, Texas 78209    210-828-9036
USA                                     29.484  98.440  200 meters


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