M31 is surprisingly fickle to hunt from Astrofest. Moon, fog, cloud and the odd tree made collecting data only possible on a handful of nights. This year I decided to try the wider field of the 80mm refractor (Zenithstar II) to see what I could get.
This is LRGB 60:70:60:60 (all 10min unbinned subs).
QHY9/MPCC through WO Zenithstar II
Wonderful image Rob I'm desperate to try and image this object myself one day but it's a hard target to get from my southern NSW locality. Road trip one night is in order I think. What focal length is that 80mm scope if I may ask? I fear that my 10" F/4 newt might be a bit too long to get this field of view
Thanks for encouragement and checking it out everyone!
I had planned to vary between the ZS80 and 8" Newt at AF, but when I saw these subs after the first night decided I'd stick to that focal length. I was actually a little disappointed when it came time to put it all together (at how challenging it was to bring out detail, keep the noise down and get some colour). Humayun is right to say even a bright (just naked eye) galaxy like this really needs >10hrs. It just wasn't possible, even with an entire week of nights at my disposal, but who knows what future opportunities might present, and it was fun!
Actually H, how the heck did you ever get that much M31 data from Canberra latitudes anyway!?
Dave, there's not much point going in much closer with the quality of optics, amount of data and small pixels on the QHY9. I'll try and get one up on Picasa or Astrobin though
Rob, that is really impressive. Can I use it as my desktop for a week or two? :-)
How high is M31 in the north from where you took the pic? Way to low here in Tas to bother trying to fotograf.
Thanks Marc. I was thinking of you - I ended up with a clumsy side-by-side arrangement with the QHY9 on the ZS80 and the 450D through the Pentax 200mm lens. I haven't had a chance to process more than this one yet, but on many nights I had the 200mm/DSLR combo clicking away "wide'ish field" shots in same direction as the 80mm. Will be interesting to see if any are worthwhile. Did shoot some Milky Way Ha at 200mm for a few hours one night just to say I'd had the CCD on the lens. Just slightly wider FOV than Rick's FSQ106/STL11000 combo as it turns out
Quote:
Originally Posted by ozstronomer
Very Nice Rob, colour and detail are great. Well done
Thanks Geoff - and thanks again for rescuing my scopes during that brief but scary shower!
Quote:
Originally Posted by firstlight
Very nice work Rob, good to see the "Curse of the Fog When Pointing North" failed to materialise occasionaly
Heh he Tony - it was certainly looking like there might be an M31 curse early in the week
I should've been up with Rick et al Sat night and Tue night too if I was REALLY committed!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Regulus
Rob, that is really impressive. Can I use it as my desktop for a week or two? :-)
How high is M31 in the north from where you took the pic? Way to low here in Tas to bother trying to fotograf.
Well done.
Trevor
Sure - glad you liked it Trevor and nice to hear its getting used. M31 doesn't get much above 20 degrees high here, so you really need to be further north. There really hard part at that altitude is finding clear dark skies to the north free of trees (and fog!). Sept through Nov are probably the best months, but usually the weather starts to let us down regularly from Nov/Dec onwards, which makes it tough getting more data.
Can you please tell me what your gain & offset value you used for this pic?
I have a new QHY9 & I'm just wondering what other's are using.
It has been suggested that a gain of 11 & the offset 112 in EZYcap is a good starting point
but what would that be in MaximDL where the gain is expressed in percentage?
I'm desperate to try and image this object myself one day but it's a hard target to get from my southern NSW locality. Road trip one night is in order I think. What focal length is that 80mm scope if I may ask? I fear that my 10" F/4 newt might be a bit too long to get this field of view
