Not this year

[Mickoid]

2022 here in Victoria, along with some other States, will be remembered as a tough year for astrophotography. M31 has been an annual pilgrimage and maybe one year it will provide everything I need to capture a good image. This season the weather and moon phases have not coincided to create that ideal night to head out and give it a go. Thursday night was the last and only chance I got to capture some data and hopefully get lucky. Well a new moon was a good start but intermittent cloud passing with only a maximum of around 1 1/2 hours of useful visibility above the horizon made it tough to achieve. The forecast proved correct, so with that in mind I didn't bother with any serious gear. So these 44 x 1 min subs @3200 iso was the best I could manage with a modded Canon 550d and a Tamron 500mm f8 Mirror lens on an iOptron Skytracker Pro. A difficult target anytime from the southern part of Victoria made more difficult by a less than ideal year.

[Dave882]

That’s a seriously good result - all the more so for such a southern location and such limited sky-time! Fantastic!!

[Mickoid]

Thanks Dave, I think we've all struggled this year and gone out on nights that we normally wouldn't bother with. Opportunities have been scarce and in desperation we've captured data just for the love of the hobby. The images you've produced this year though, have been outstanding. Thanks for keeping the forum fed with your contributions! :)

[oska]

Great result Michael, especially given the difficulty you had. Bravo.

[Crater101]

Apart from understanding the clear sky issues (don't get me started...) this is a really neat result. Nicely done.

[xelasnave]

Magnificent..you can be very proud of this one.
Alex

[Mickoid]

Thanks John, nothing as good as the result you got on this one - great image. That's what I was hoping to achieve on the night. Maybe next year.


Thanks Warren, neat is a good way of describing it, a small package of data that got a result at least. I think I'll have to end up shooting this from further north to get a better go at it.

Alex, thanks for the compliment. Your goes at M31 this year have been very inspiring, top results from you too. There's been more posts of M31 this year than I've ever seen since joining IIS. People are realising it's a gettable target given a suitable location.