M31 - 2013 Leyburn Campaign + Repro effort

[RobF]

OK, so I may be a just a little obsessed with Andromeda. Over the years I've tried to get decent M31 data at Astrofest, usually involving lots of mosaicing, then cloud/fog/sleep deprivation cuts in in the early hours of the morning leading to big compromises.

This year I took a few days off for Oct new moon to capture M31 from Leyburn's dark skies. To be honest the distant lights of Toowoomba were still a bot of a hindrance for an object this low to the north until it was getting up towards transit time. Even though I collected quite a bit of data, the gradients in the RGB were challenging. Later I found I had blurring of stars in my longer Lum frames, possibly due to the imaging train unscrewing a little when the cables pulled during a meridian flip, or perhaps focuser movement. Grrr, you live and learn for things to watch for.

I haven't had a big dataset to play with for a while, so processing included all sorts of tricks to contain stars (extracting RGB artificial lum, then registering the slightly smeared master Lum frames on that), gradient removal in PI, and lots of torture to pull out the colour. Have possibly lost a little galaxy extension the process, but happy for now.

Anyway, this is about 6.25 hours of main 5 and 10 mins subs, with some 2min subs to help the star profiles
LRGB 120:94:90:74
QHY9 on FSQ106ED @ f3.7

Larger zoomable version here (https://picasaweb.google.com/UserRobF/RecentWork#5938332846124689010)

[Elio]

It's a good image, my suggestions are: recalibrate color (ciano is over), retrieves the core, take under control the smoothness, and be careful with minimum filter with the stars...it could be a great image in my opinion, more than 6 hours work deserves a new repro ;)
Andromeda is a bad beast :lol:

[batema]

It looks great Rob. You must be loving the FSQ.

[gregbradley]

A very nice M31 from Southern Skies. It turned out quite well despite your difficulties.

Try layering another luminance layer set to luminosity after you've done a 20 iteration deconvolution on it. It'll tighten up the stars a bit.

Shadows/highlights may recover more of the core.

Greg.

[Larryp]

Very nice!

[multiweb]

Nice avatar. :) Great pic. Never had a serious go at this one. Too low for me.

[RickS]

Nice work, Rob. You're a sucker for punishment ;) I'm sure you can squeeze a bit more out of the data but it's quite an achievement for such a difficult target at our latitude. Quite good detail and nice colour.

Cheers,
Rick.

[naskies]

Nicely done, Rob. It has a bit of a crinkled 3D look... not bad for 15-20 deg alt!

[Ric]

Great capture Rob

Down my way I just wish I could see it. :D

[Spookyer]

Good work Rob, great result for such a low down target.

[strongmanmike]

Well Rob, I recon you can feel very satisfied with that result and put another notch in your imaging bed post ;)

I am going on a South Pacific Cruise for Christmas and look forward to a clear evening or two on board to have a look as some northern constellations, will be taking my binoculars too :thumbsup:

Mike

[jjjnettie]

That's really nice. :)

[RobF]

Thanks everyone for checking it out.

It does look a bit off colour and lumpy especially in the compressed jpg with a new set of eyes tonight. Thanks Elio and Greg for the processing thoughts. I find galaxies a challenge, particularly when you get down below 30 degrees altitude like this. As Rick and Dave have told me - I need to get up a bit higher out of the dust to make life easier of course :)

I really wanted to bring out the blue star fields and a hint of the red Ha nebula regions. Think I need a calibrated monitor before too long too. Always some gadget to lust for in this hobby!

[Bassnut]

Excellent Rob, given how low it is.

[Rex]

Nice image Rob, very 3D. the dust looks like its just hanging there. Great work.

[ozstronomer]

Great Image Rob, you have done an excellent job considering on how low that galaxy is in the sky :thumbsup:

[Octane]

Oh, yeah! Nice one, Rob.

I know just how hard this one is. My rendition had loads of hours and then PixInsight magic to make it work.

I'm yet to blend the hydrogen alpha into it. Will get around to it one of these days. :)

The FSQ is a wonder. :)

Top stuff!

H

[astronobob]

Great going Rob, not an easy target for the altitude hey, always some amount of murky sky there, But yep, I dig the light you have portrayed here , speshly around the core mate, Job well Done :thumbsup:

[Ross G]

A beautiful photo of my favourite object in the whole sky.

Well done Rob...I love it!

Ross.

[LewisM]

Lovely.

Always want to do M31, never can from here.

[sjastro]

Very nice image.

From my site (-38 degrees latitude) M31 is a grossly seeing effected blob.

Regards

Steven

[RobF]

Many thanks everyone.
Glad to hear Andromeda "blows the mind" of other people too, just trying to come to grips with what that faint naked eye smudge really represents. I'll have to find time to try a Sidonio re colour balance and processing, but going by how short time has been this year I'm not holding my breath. :)

Rob

[Shiraz]

really good image Rob - hard target but you did it proud.

[RobF]

Thanks for checking it out Ray.
I've been trying a repro last few nights, but the gradients are winning so far. I've really got to shoot up near the meridian next fine new moon :doh:

[RobF]

I've been playing with this on an off for the last couple of weeks, going back to basics, DBE'ing gradients out before stretching, extracting artificial lum from RGB again and knitting that back into the original lum data, kinder colour calibration, then new stretches and contrast work. In and out of PI and PS. Tried to contain the stars better by more aggressive integration methods, but please put your hand over the bottom right corner still! I'm happier with this rendition though.

Comments welcome (if you haven't had enough already :lol:), but no eggs or rotten tomatos please :)

Larger jpg version here (https://picasaweb.google.com/UserRobF/RecentWork#5942385085269131826)

[Spookyer]

Rob, second version is better I think, great work!

Brett

[spearo]

well done,
Repro seems punchier, better contrast and colors i think
lovely
frank

[Paul Haese]

I like that last rendition Rob. Nicely framed. Colour still needs a tweek I reckon to the blue end. Good to print. The higher res is pretty nice to view. Maybe some tilt that needs addressing for future images.

[Octane]

Way, way, way better. :)

You're inspiring me to revisit my data!

H

[RobF]

Thanks Brett - wouldn't be the first repro that went backwards, but its always good when you're still happy the next day that it looks ok.



Thanks Frank!



I'm really thinking some monitor calibrating gear is next on the list Paul. For the first time I got quite frustrated not sure which one to trust. Rarely print my work but think this one might be worthwhile. I'm hoping the tilt was some unscrewing of the all screw-together image train, but might be from the "captain's wheel" focuser rotation assembly which some people have trouble with on FSQ106EDs I've read (fingers crossed that's not the case with my basic camera arrangement).
Hmmm blue. I'm always a bit heavy on blue with stars/sky - must try some variations.



Nah - your's was already awesome!

[strongmanmike]

This looks great and better than the first version, so well reproed Rob :thumbsup:

Mike

[RobF]

Thanks Mike - I'm a happy camper now for the effort put into getting the data. Was getting a bit despondent initially, but saved it "from the rough" in the end. :D

[strongmanmike]

Funny how that can happen sometimes huh? I've done it on a few images myself in the past :doh: most infamously notable my deep Centaurus A :scared:...couldn't get it right and did several repros over a few months and then finally nailed it :scared: rest is history :thumbsup:

Again well done :)

MIke