second attempt at M31

[neil groves]

This is a one hour exposure of M31 with my ED120 and Canon T3 set at ISO1600 on tungsten white balance, I am a little dissopointed at the lack of detail here, should I be able to coax more out with post processing or do I need to sit another hour in the back yard?

Neil.

[andrewluck]

Hard to tell from a jpeg. Upload a 16 bit unprocessed tiff to a file sharing site and I'm sure someone will take a look for you.

Andrew

[Vox45]

Hi Neil

How did you expose for 1 hour. Number of subs/exposure time ? I'd like to know to understand how others get to those results Still learning.

Cheers

[tingting44]

1 hour is not a lot of data, id be aiming for at least double figures, myself i am aiming for 30hours....

this is 4 hours what i captured last weekend

M31 by tingting44, on Flickr

*for shot details, click on image*

 

so yes a long story short....you need to sit in the back yard a bit more

[Scott]

Neil, you sound as though sitting out under the stars is a chore? It's what makes ap so enjoyable to me... set the imaging rig going and savour the skies either naked eye, bins or another scope. 

[Pete Presland]

i think there is probably more data in the image than is on show at the moment. as others have said more data will help though

[Earl]

M31 is not the easiest of objects to get results, yes its large but its not very bright, and the core is easily blown out and needs to be accounted for, I have 6 hours of luminance ready for my LRGB Ha attempt and there will be at least 3 hours each colour and 6 Ha to get it starting to look right.

[Uranium235]

Yep, one hour is nowhere near enough. Its going to be more like five or six to get a good stack. M31, although big - has a low surface brightness (bar the core) so you need that extra time to catch the outer dust lanes.

The end of BST is fast approaching, so accumulating 5 or 6 hours in one evening is easily possibe (if its clear...ha!). Set the gear up to guide about 6pm, go have your dinner, have a cuppa, watch whatever you want on telly, then come back to more data than you can shake a stick at.

If you can, set up the computer you use to guide/capture on a wireless network and you can watch all the PHD action from the comfort of your armchair, or if you need to go offsite (down the pub?) - you can monitor or control it from your smartphone.

[tingting44]

Yep, one hour is nowhere near enough. Its going to be more like five or six to get a good stack. M31, although big - has a low surface brightness (bar the core) so you need that extra time to catch the outer dust lanes.

The end of BST is fast approaching, so accumulating 5 or 6 hours in one evening is easily possibe (if its clear...ha!). Set the gear up to guide about 6pm, go have your dinner, have a cuppa, watch whatever you want on telly, then come back to more data than you can shake a stick at.

If you can, set up the computer you use to guide/capture on a wireless network and you can watch all the PHD action from the comfort of your armchair, or if you need to go offsite (down the pub?) - you can monitor or control it from your smartphone.

thats if your lucky enough to image at home!

[Uranium235]

No choice mate.... no wheels!

[lensman57]

Neil, you sound as though sitting out under the stars is a chore? It's what makes ap so enjoyable to me... set the imaging rig going and savour the skies either naked eye, bins or another scope. 

Ditto, the best thing that I do at times is to grab my 15 X 70s and just scan the sky. I find that more often than not this is more rewarding than just checking the computer screen from time to time to see the automated systems are behaving. In fact I find the image aquisition stage in AP quite boring, the fun begins at the processing stage.

A.G

[Cozzy]

Neil

 this 58 mins worth from 2012. I used Canon 1000D and 80mm Sky Watcher, massively over processed to see what I had.

,

Meant to go back and get a lot more data but never did, but may just have another go, weather Gods permitting.