M31 Andromeda Galaxy (Redo)

I'm much happier with this iteration. I used the Astronomy Tools add-on for Photoshop to remove the blue halo around the stars and shrink them from within the original image, and ran some additional subroutines to make the galaxy more prominent. I'll hopefully get some more data over the next few weeks, weather permitting.

M31 Andromeda Galaxy

This is a so-so image - it has a long way to go but I thought I'd publish this iteration. I have a fair bit of image data but might go out and get some more this weekend, including some shorter exposures so that the core isn't so burnt out, as well as the stars in the foreground. I also feel I can be getting a lot more detail here. I'll work on a new iteration next week when I have time.

Image Details

• Imaging Scope: William Optics 66mm Petzval Refractor
  Imaging Camera: Nikon D7000
  Guiding Scope: Astrotelescopes 80mm ED Refractor
  Guiding Camera: Meade DSI-C
  Exposures: 8 * 10 minute lights, 4 * 10 minute darks
  ISO 640
  Aligned and Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker
  HDR through Photomatix PRO
  Post-Processing in GIMP (contrast, saturation and unsharp mask)
  Noise Removal in Neat Image

M31 Andromeda

Here is my M31 "best of" image. I went through several iterations of processing on the set of images I acquired this past Friday night. While these were long~ish exposures (five minutes), I still really had to bend the curves and settings to get the image to look like this, and it really brought out some noise. I now think I need to take 10-minute exposures to get decent RAW images to stack and work from without inducing the noise and graininess seen in the resulting image. It IS better than my last attempt, for sure.

Image Details

• Imaging Scope: William Optics 66mm Petzval Refractor

• Imaging Camera: Nikon D40
• Guiding Scope: Astrotelescopes 80mm ED Refractor
• Guiding Camera: Meade DSI-C
• Exposures: 19 * 5 minute lights, 4 * 5 minute darks
• ISO 800
• Aligned and Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker
• Post-Processing in GIMP (contrast, saturation and unsharp mask)
• Noise Removal in Neat Image

I am going to try this again in a few days' time. My M51 shot from a few months ago came out nicely at ISO400 with 10 minute exposures. That may be the ticket for this...

M31 Andromeda Galaxy

This image is much better than my last attempt at this beautiful galaxy. I have a long way to go yet, but this is definitely a step in the right direction. As stated in a prior post, I didn't set up my guider due to pure laziness and lack of concentration. So, this image was made of two-minute exposures. With guiding, I could at least double the exposure length and get a much better image, which I will for try next time out. I definitely have my drift alignment down now as the stars look pretty good, and you can see more detail in the galaxy itself.

Image Details:

• William Optics 66MM Refractor
• Mounted on a Meade 8" LX200 Classic with Milburn Wedge
• Nikon D40 DSLR
• ISO800
• 37 *120 second light frames
• 8 *120 second dark frames
• 8 * flat frames
  
• Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker
• Level and curve adjustment in GIMP
• Noise reduction in Neat Image
  

M31: Second Attempt

So, below is my second attempt at M31. Better than the first one, methinks. Taken through fairly light-polluted skies so I fear a fair bit of the nebulosity has been washed away. I retook my flat images tonight at dusk. I pointed the WO66 at the sky with a white t-shirt and took about 20 .3 second exposures. This resulted in flat frames which did a better job of representing the optical and CCD deficiencies of the DSLR and WO66 scope.

Image Details:

• 20 * 3 minute light exposures @ ISO800
• 3 * 3 minute dark frames
• 20 * .3 second flat frames
• 20 * 1/4000 bias frames
• Nikon D40
• William Optics 66mm Refractor piggybacked atop a Meade 8" LX200 SCT with Milburn equatorial wedge
• Processed in Deep Sky Stacker
• Additional saturation and sharpening in Photoshop

Below is a slightly modified (auto levels in GIMP) version of the same picture, revealing more of the galaxy's disc:

M31 Second Attempt

Last night at the public event, after the crowds went back to their campsites, I took on some more imaging. The image below is another crack at M31 Andromeda. Again, the D40 was piggybacked atop my LX200. It's an okay image. I was careful to take flat images this time to get around the vignetting of the 200mm zoom lens, but there's still some warp factor in the image. Perhaps the lense is not well-suited to this sort of application???

A so-so image.

Image Specs:

• Nikon D40 DSLR
• Piggybacked on Meade LX200 8" SCT with Milburn Wedge
• 18 3 minute exposures
• ISO 800
• F5.6
• Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker
• Noise Reduction in NeatImage

Focus Focus Focus!

I spent several hours out in the cold last night shooting M31. While the images looked great on my Nikon D40 screen after taking each individual frame, once I got them home to processing software they looked out of focus. Stars were blurry, and while I captured good luminosity around the galaxy and its companion, the resulting image is pretty poor. Buggah!!!!

Below is the best I could do, processing-wise, with the images that I took. Tons of noise, weird vignetting, out of focus, grrr.....


















Oh well, next time...