M31 teaser

[xelasnave]

Had a run last night, all night, and here is the promise of M31.
Espiit 80mm heq5 zwo cooled -15 70 luminance subs of 30 second captures at 350 gain (I know pretty high but it seems to work for me.) no darks or flats.
Stacked DSS but did no more than to remove noise and round the stars in startools ..lust wanted to see how it was going...it seemed there was no noise really unless someone can point it out for me...In and out of photo shop for a play with dodge and burn..resize in Gimp and level manipulation...minimal effort but I think it shows promise. I was up till 4-30 am and after cutting down some trees and various things that really is beyond my physical ability I was stuffed..and today was rather hard to manage...but all my greens were useless fog had rolled in and I never got to retake them or get any blue..Hopefully tonight.


Should I get HA O11 and S11????


I think the 80 mm must be made for this object...it is really big..yes as a body but in the frame.


Whish me luck but I may be off the air after the effort I must put in to complete this...I could not stack more because of lack of power..having all sorts of problems with power so processing was only a little of what I have and what is to come..tonight..er tomorrow...morning:P.


alex

[Startrek]

What a superb, no brilliant image of Andromeda Alex
An eye opener !!
Imagine 3 or 4 hours worth ! Us southerners only get a snippet of M31 when it just pops its head up just above the horizon for a little while and then disappears before you know it
Well done !!

[The_bluester]

I would love to image M31, but it won’t be happening from here, it peaks at under 11 degrees. It probably does not even clear the trees at home.

[xelasnave]

Thanks Martin.
When I started imaging the scope looked horizontal and I really got a shock to see the images appear so clear...I reckon I started with it maybe 12 degrees up...I will check ...I have an app that can tell ...or time stamp referenced to a planetarium program....doing the Eagle now, got some lagoon and something around antares ...but so tired I hope I can get more m31 later.
Alex

[raymo]

Great job Alex, wish it was in colour.
raymo

[LostInSp_ce]

Looking good Alex, you're lucky to be able to get this target. Hopefully you can add some more data to it later.

[xelasnave]

I am sure I will grant you your wish Raymo. I have some red and blue and green are only hours away.

Alex

[xelasnave]

Thanks I plan to gather data for the next month or two:D
Alex

[ChrisV]

Excellent Alex. Besides being a great image, it is encouraging. I'm going for it this year -reaches a dizzying altitude of 15deg in Sydney, well pretty close to that!!

I'm not sure on exposure times though, as I see that you can easily get blowout of the core? Is it worth doing a few different exposure times?
And as you say, I'm not sure whether to get some Halpha on it - does it come out with this galaxy?

Does anyone know?

[xelasnave]

Thanks Chris..it's not that high here as I said the scope looks horizontal in the dark.
I have taken some shots to get the core but at this stage I want to push it to get the outer parts...
I had I terrible time last night..polar was ok but I tried for better and was stuffing around for hours and being so tired you make mistakes but I managed about 40 more minutes to get some blue and red so I have something to start with..as to have etc if I can I will take them and see what I can do with them later.
It's a case of building a starter photo and adding as the season goes on..I want to have it figured out for when it can be around in reasonable hours.
Alex

[xelasnave]

I have stacked each of LRBG then stacked all of them:D just to see what it has...only a noise reduction and star fix in ST dodge and burn minimal in PS and one level and resize in Gimp...will process fully later today time permitting..but just wanted to see how the minimal dataandhigh gain was shaping up..better than I expected so far;).
alex