Andromeda from Duckadang

[batema]

Hi,

Taken through the W/O 70mm ISO 800 with my Canon 400d unmodified.

The sky was fantstic so I thought I would have a real crack at getting some data for this image. Te result is 12 x 10 minute Lights with darks, bias frames and flats. Stacked in DSS and processed inphotoshop cs3.

Any comments welcome. Have not yet broached the topic of Barumba? dark sky with my financial advisor yet. Will have to plan my approach very tactfully.

Mark :P

[AlexN]

Nice Mark!

Real Nice! I hope to get some data on this baby up at barambah.. from memory of last year, I think there is some trees to the north of the imaging field that could obstruct the view a little, but Im fairly confident that over 3 nights I could get enough data to work with... 1hr a night would be plenty I think..

Congrats on the great image!

Alex.

[alan meehan]

Hi Mark lovely image you hve framed this monster nicely.i tried it myself with the 10" newt but could not get it in and did not do enough data,maybe next year , top shot

[dpastern]

Tis a very good shot, but I'm surprised to see so much noise, is this normal for this much data guys?

Dave

[h0ughy]

excellent shot - one wonderful galaxy

[AlexN]

David - This could be due to overstretching the data, or jpg compression artifacts etc.. could also be that the darks were taken in a cooler temperature than the lights etc..

[dpastern]

Ah good. See, I knew there was a good reason!

Dave

[multiweb]

Nice contrast and processing Mark. Well done indeed. :thumbsup:

[[1ponders]]

Great detail there Mark. :thumbsup: I'd guess the noise is from being a bit overstretched. Try resetting the black point a bit lower and using a light Gaussian Blur using colour range selection on the faint outer parts of the galaxy and background. Apply a light feather before using the Gaussian.

There's also a slight reddish cast to the background, maybe raise the red blackpoint a bit higher in levels or lower the red curve down the black end in curves.

[gregbradley]

Great shot for a southern hemispherer.

Greg.

[batema]

After some tweeking based on the advice from others I resubmit my next effort. Let us know what you think. I seem to have lost some of the redness as well as some of the grainyness near the galaxy. I have included the original as first followed by the repro.

Mark

[Octane]

Mark,

That's a great effort.

I prefer the original as it has that haze/glow around the galaxy. The reprocess has the inner region looking washed out.

Just add more data, take appropriate dark frames, and you'll only improve. :)

Regards,
Humayun

[RB]

Oh must have missed this thread somehow.
Well done Mark, M31 is one of my favourite objects and one that is quite hard to capture good data on from our southern locations.

You've done well with this.
There's nice definition in there for sure.

:thumbsup: