M51, second attempt
Yesterday evening it was clear outside and the Moon was rising at about 1.30 so I had 2 hours of total dark and this is enough for testing the new autoguiding camera QHY5. The target was M51, the second time. While I was deciding what to capture I realized that I will have to move to better location since from my backyard the southern sky is totally useless because of road lamps.
I managed to make a new cable for QHY5 so now it works with SkySensor autoguiding port. With that I decreased the number of cables from laptop to my mount from 5 to 3. Now I need only USB connection between PC and Camera, Bulb shutter release cable and USB connection with QHY5, which is great. I am planning to buy a new CCD for astrophotography so after that I will need only 2 cables. No more mess around the scope, finally!
So, I have just processed the image, the result is shown below:
Spiral Galaxy M51 @ 26 x 5min, ISO 800, RAW
I have also taken a shot of my equipment, at the “working” state 
My Astrophotography Equipment
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Looks fantastic, I definitely will get a backyard telescope later this year. Could you explain what 26 x 5min exposure means? 26 photos with 5 mins exposure?
Exactly as you said. 26 subexposures, each 5min long.
Why do you have to split them? Why not 1 photo with 130 mins exposure?
Because of the thermic noise. All the CCD detectors have so called ‘hot pixels’ which show the signal despite there was no any light source. The longer exposure is, more noise you have in the picture. If you take some light frames and some dark frames (pictures with cap on the telescope) you can remove the noise when processing the pictures (the tutorial follows).
And there is another reason. If I take 1 picture 1h 30min that means the same time of perfect guiding, no satellites, airplanes ect. If there is a error in a 5min exposure or airplane or satellite trail I simply delete it.
good to know, thanks for taking time to explain.
Excellent photo! You are an inspiration!