[Mickoid (Michael)]

This is becoming an annual pilgrimage to attempt a shot at this galaxy from down south. Last year conditions were unfavourable so I missed out, the year before that, we were in Lockdown and I couldn't leave home to visit my shooting location. On Tuesday night it was this year's turn and conditions looked very promising even though it was one of the coldest nights this winter. Great for taming sensor noise but not good for the comfort of the camera operator! I started shooting at 3.00 am and packed it in at 4.45 am. There were two reasons, A: Andromeda was getting too low for usable data and B: I thought if I don't get out of here, hypothermia will set in!

I ended up with 1hr 45 mins of data using the Esprit 100 on an HEQ5pro mount. This comprised of 105 X 1 min unguided subs @ 1600 iso with the Fujifilm XT100. Just to prove how cold it was I took a shot of my car's dash outside temperature reading. I also took a shot with my mobile phone indicating how low M31 is above the horizon from here. The yellow arrow points to Andromeda.