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Showing results for tags 'm31'.
Found 126 results
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So, although I had some issues with my auto guiding (which I found out afterwards) I did manage to get 9x180s exposures and 5 darks of Andromeda and give both stacking (using DSS) and processing (using GIMP). My first attempted DSO.... I am pretty sure that people could get far more information out of the TIFF file from the stack. Hopefully I will get another clear night soon. I am in a heavily light polluted area so I do have a clip in filter on my DSLR which I think took a lot away. More practise needed! Lance
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Hi All, Having had to move to an apartment where I could not use my CPC 1100, I decided that I have to see what I could do with my NexStar SLT 102 (alt-az achromatic 102mm f6.47 refractor). Setting up on my narrow balcony was challenging and the altitude bearing was so loose that it almost moved from the weight of the Canon 700D. I could not see M31 in the estimated 3.5 magnitude sky so I did a two star alignment and used the live-view to focus on a bright star. I then took a 15 second exposure after slewing to M31 which allowed me to see that I had it in the field of view. After a few more 15 second exposures and playing with the motion controls I managed to get it centered. The resulting picture is from 39 subs of 30 seconds at ISO 1600, 9 flats. The images were stacked and stretched with Siril and then I played with the curves on Gimp, cropped and scaled. Not too unhappy.
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Hi guys!I finally managed to decide I'm done processing my insane photoproject of digging deep inside M31.Long story short: One picture of M31, 27megapixel 2x2 mosaic, +3 months of imaging in crappy weather, 18 separate nights, 534 separate exposures, +150 hours of processing, 1233 manually annotated objects inside M31.(images in the end of this post, lots of "bla bla" first)I had a great start last autumn with loads of clear nights, which made me think it be a quick stab to make a 2x2 mosaic (my first mosaic btw) of M 31 since my f.o.v is to narrow to capture M31 in one frame...But pretty much as soon as I started, the swedish weather turned into a mess which made me shoot M31 during 18(!) separate nights, during more than 3 months(!).I also spent countless of hours studying the M31 Atlas available online at: http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/ANDROMEDA_Atlas/frames.htmlIt contains +40 annotated plates of M31 captured with Kitts Peak 4m telescope and contains +1000 globular clusters, open clusters, stellar ascossiations and dust-clouds inside M31.By looking at those charts, I manually annotated 1233 objects in my image, along with names & outlines (except for dustcloud-names, since it cluttered the image too much)Here's what I found within my image:232 Globular Clusters235 Open Clusters140 Stellar Assosciations626 Dust CloudsData captured using ACP + SchedulerCalibration was done in Maxim, registration & stacking + mosaic-merging done in PI, the rest in photoshop.Gear:Telescope: Orion Optics AG12Camera: QSI 583 wsg-8Mount: 10Micron GM 2000 HPSGuiding: UnguidedSummary of exposures:Lum: 364 x 180s / 1092 minutesRed: 39 x 300s / 195 minutesGreen : 36 x 300s / 180 minutesBlue : 43 x 300s / 215 minutesHa : 52 x 900s / 780 minutesTotal time: 2462 minutes / 41 hoursHere are a few 100% crops so you can appreciate the level of resolution and the hard work behind it.(note Hubbles famous Cepheid, marked as "Var 1")Also, here's one of the charts used for annotation along with a matching crop from my image:If you're not using a mobile device, I highly recommend following the links to my homepage where the image is presented in full resolution along with selectable annotation-layers containing the following:Globular ClustersOpen ClustersDark NebulaeStellar AssociationsGrid + DSO'sIt was really mind-boggling processing a image of this scale, realizing that all those fuzzy spots visible inside the galaxy are actually open clusters and globular clusters, along with Ha-regions and much more!Unfortunately mobile devices usually downscale the huge 27MP resolution images and have trouble with the annotation-layers, so if you're using a computer(highly recommended), click the following images to be taken to my homepage where you can select which layers of annotation to be displayed, as well as the choice of 3 different resolutions. Otherwise there are direct-links to all versions below the images in this thread.Direct-links to images, No annotation:http://www.grinderphoto.se/pics/Med_102.jpg - (1024px width)http://www.grinderphoto.se/pics/Large_102.jpg - (3500px width)http://www.grinderphoto.se/pics/Full_102.jpg - (+6000px width)Direct-links to images, Annotated:http://www.grinderphoto.se/pics/Med_102_Annotated.jpg - (1024px width)http://www.grinderphoto.se/pics/Large_102_Annotated.jpg - (3500px width)http://www.grinderphoto.se/pics/Full_102_Annotated.jpg - (+6000px width)Thanks for watching, I hope you enjoy exploring all the details in this fantastic galaxy!Best RegardsJonas Grindehttp://www.grinderphoto.se
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My M31. Shot over 3 nights. Only 11 total hours. LRGB only with Astrodon filters, ZWO ASI1600MM-C camera, and the WO Redcat.
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Hey.. So last night i went to a beach that had one side completely dark ,and the other filed with light pollution . In the dark side,the milky way gqlaxy was pretty obvious and the sky was full of stars. Andromeda was rising and i wanted to take a peak, however , it was low on the horizon and had a slight haze(skyglow).It wasn't visible with the naked eye and in my 10x50 binoculars i could just resolve the core. I heard Andromeda would be visible with the naked eye as its mag 3.3. But the milkyway was and Andromeda wasnt.What went wrong?
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I currently am on holiday in my father's hometown, a small island near rhodes called symi.Symj, is a pretty small town,with only about 2000 residents.That means that the light pollution levels must be low. Acknowledging that, i called my friends, grabbed my 10x50 bins(that i got for 20€ from Turkey),and went on my way to find a dark site.About after 20 mins of walking (from the city),i stumbled upon a beach, it was dark, so i went in.There i decided to lay on a sunbed that was there.After looking up(not being dark adapted, my friends just kept turning their flashlights on for some reason), i saw the haze of the milky way stretching from Cassiopeia to cygnus and beyond!I was amazed as i ve never seen the milky way before and smudged it off as clouds until i confirmed it was the milky way from an app! The weird part was that at just straight overhead, was the port ,which had many lights, and as a result the sky appeared half bright and half dark. I turned over at Sagittarius and headed over the lagoon nebula. Brilliant! 3-4 stars in a line surrounded by bright nebulosity.(while still being in the haze!) Afterwards i headed to cygnus,it was a real light show! I saw the milky way layering on top of Cygnus while catching a glimpse of m23 and yet again, failing to see NGC7000 . Then, with the corner of my eye, i detected something moving, then turned over to Cassiopeia to see a shooting stsr!(it was my first time seeing one!!!) Was very brief, yet enjoyable. Right afterwards i turned over at the Perseus double cluster.Magnificent! Appeared as 2 small balls of light , almost connected yo eachother. Finally, i realised that finally, the target i was seeking to observe all year long, M31 was into the area with the light pollution! What a shame! While also being low on the Horizon, I couldnt see it with the naked eye. I observed it with ny binoculars for 10 minutes or so . The core was resolved nicely with some hints of outer nebulosity. Overall a great night and now, i wished i had my 8" dob with me.... (Sorry for any granmar mistakes, im currently typing this at 2 am xD)
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From the album: Slynxx Learning Curve
First proper try at capturing M31 30 x 75 sec Light Frames 10 x Dark Frames Canon 700D (Un-modded) Canon EF 75-300 ISO 1600 Stacked using Photoshop & the Median stacking process.-
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From the album: Deep Sky
Third attempt at M31 and my second reprocessing attempt. After watching Adam Block's excellent PS tutorial (Cosmic Canvas) I decided to incorporate two additional techniques into my PS workflow: Shadows and Highlights for increasing colour in the RGB image and HDR toning for increasing contrast in the synthetic luminance layer. LIGHTS: 42 x 300s + 23 x 600s; DARKS:30; BIAS: 100; FLATS:40. Taken with a Trius SX-26C and SW ED80. -
From the album: Wide-field (not barn-door)
Capture: 16 lights x 60s x 2500iso, 8 darks, Olympus E-PM1 with Chinon 200mm/3.5 @4 on Omegon EQ-300 tracking RA, neodymium filter Processing: Regim 3.3, Fotoxx 12.01, Gimp 2.8 Date: 2016-09-07 Place: Deep country 26km from Limoges, France© Fabien COUTANT
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From the album: Deep Sky II
A crop of the M31 Mosaic image around the core. -
From the album: Jon's images
7 x 135s lights, 2 x 135s darks, 11 x bias, total 15m44s, unguided, overprocessed M31. Just as a test to see if I'm learning the right way to do things. -
From the album: Alt-Az / NoEQ DSO challenge
M31 - Andromeda Galaxy on 2017-09-22 Gear: Olympus E-PL6 with OM-Zuiko 200mm/4 at F/5.4 and TS-Dydimium filter on Celestron NexStar SLT Capture: 60 lights (/80% keep) x 40s x 3200 ISO, 13 darks Sky: moonless, average (didn't get any SQM, was prb 18-19), 50km from Paris, France Processing: Regim 3.4, Fotoxx 12.01+ Edit: for full size see here: https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/228101-the-no-eq-dso-challenge/?page=116#comment-3294377© Fabien COUTANT
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From the album: Stargazer33's Album
C8, CG5-GT, f6.3 focal reducer, Canon 1100D© 2013 Bryan Harrison
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From the album: Canon EOS 1100D Images
M31, designation NGC 224, the Andromeda Galaxy, with companion galaxies M32 (NGC 221, near), and M110 (NGC205, far),at about 2.5 lightyears from Earth. one of the best known galaxies to us. Shot w/ Canon EOS 1100D 300mm lens at ISO800, f/5.6, these are 26x5m, 3x10m and 6x3m esposures, calibrated w/ith 154 dark frames (about 50 for each exposure length, 56 bias, and 21 flats.-
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From the album: Galaxies
M31 - Andromeda Galaxy L= 52 x 600s R= 15 x 600s G= 15 x 600s B= 15 x 600s Equinox 80 NEQ6 Pro Atik 383L+ Taken on the nights of 11th,14th,15th,17th,18th and 19th August 2012 Captured with Artemis. PHD Guiding Stacked, aligned with Maxim DL Flats, Bias and Darks applied. Processed with Pixinsight, MaximDL, Images Plus and Photoshop CS3. -
This started on 10/31/17 I had set my 8SE up at around 7:00 pm Transparency: above average 4/5 Seeing: average 3/5 I viewed a number of objects with my 8SE: M31, M32, M110 was not able to see. M57, M27 are always available. M13, M92 sitting very pretty in a clearer patch of sky than usual to the west. I was early enough to catch some favorites, M8, M16, M17, M20, M21, M22, M23, and M24 I then took a break and when I came back I grabbed my binoculars, 10x50's. First I viewed Pleiades, then Hyades, then over to Mirach, Nu, Mu, and above that to M31. I couldn't see M110 or M32 in binos. I've been searching for Kembles Cascade with binoculars, which I've found with the 8SE, though you can only see two stars at a time at that magnification and narrower FOV. So I'm looking around the general vicinity below Cassiopeia, in Camelopardalis and eventually wander into Perseus and find: The Double Cluster with my binos. I slewed the 8SE over to NGC 884, and NGC 869 to confirmed that I had in fact found the double cluster in my 10x50's I finished my bino tour of the sky on the Coathanger Cluster. I have never viewed the Coathanger cluster through my telescope. Well, maybe once just like M45 and Hyades. I always use binoculars to look at these objects now. I finished the evening on M42 which I end up looking at for nearly an hour through both the binoculars and my 8SE
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I completed a 4 panel M31 mosaic last year which was imaged with my SW 80 ED (see my album Deep Sky II). Whilst I was happy with the result, I was interested to see if I could enhance the core detail with additional subs from my new SW Esprit 150, which would give a higher resolution image. I decided that I would collect just new Lum data and then use a combination of RegiStar, PS and PI to overlay the new high resolution Lum data with the lower resolution data from the ED 80. Since the FOV with Esprit is about 1/4 that of the SW 80 and the fact that I didn't fancy creating a 16 panel Lum mosaic, I decided to focus only on the core of M31. I estimated that a 300s Lum exposure should be OK and this was confirmed by checking that the pixel level of the resultant image was below my cameras non-linear region. The result represents about 55 hours total integration time. M31 (SW ED 80 and Esprit 150) M31 crop Alan The details of the subs are below: ED 80 1 2 3 4 L 16 16 18 12 600 s R 19 12 15 13 600 s G 16 18 9 10 600 s B 18 19 13 16 600 s H 5 8 6 6 1800 s Esprit 150 (M31 core) L 27 300 s
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I took a series of images of part of M31 early one evening last month while waiting for the target I wanted to rise above a tree. With 70min of exposures (as 14x5m), I have a quick image of the SW region of the galaxy (including NGC206) as below. I'm kinda looking to progress this further over time and it's potentially the first phases of a mosaic project - needs much more exposure, and colour, I reckon about 4 frames might cover it... but this is something for next season now. For fun, and while waiting for better weather, I've grabbed a copy of the Revised Bologna Catalogue (http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/Cat?cat=V%2F143&target=brief&) from VizieR and sorted it to include only the confirmed globular clusters. By outputting this in tab separated format, it's possible to use this within the Annotate script after a platesolve in Pixinsight to highlight what we have (or havent) got... Here's the quickly processed version (reduced in PI and processed TGV, Masked Stretch, Histogram Stretch, HDRMT and LHE and then Morphological Transform via a Star Mask to reduce the stars a little), and followed by an inverted (and slightly darkened) version with annotated display of the catalogue entries. There are about 170 globulars plotted here (there are 600 + in the catalogue as a whole) with the RBC identifier and quoted V magnitude in brackets - there's a couple of PGC galaxies there too Cheers EDIT: Should have added image details - all on FLT110 at ~ f5.7 with WO FR, ST2000XM @ -20C, Lum filter. All on Losmandy Titan.
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I've been trying for over a year to get a shot of M31 that showed more than just a fuzzy white blob and this is the closest I've come so far. It was taken on 8th December 2014 from light-polluted London, but it took such a lot of processing to get just this much out that I lost all objectivity with it and shelved it. But looking at it again I now don't think it's too bad for an early attempt. Obviously I've got much further to go before I get a shot I'd be truly happy with, but this is something of a milestone for me. It was taken with a 50mm lens and drizzled three times in DSS. 53 x 8 second exposures at 400 ISO and 11 dark frames.
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This is a shot I've wanted to try for years. It's an experiment in taking guided shots with an EQ mount and an assembly of lenses to get a focal length of 400mm which is perfect for framing this object. All in all, I'm quite pleased with the result. 53 x 2 minute exposures at 400mm f8 - 400 ISO (1 hour and 46 minutes) 22 x dark frames 23 x flat frames 20 x bias/offset frames (subtracted from flat frames only) Captured with APT Guided with PHD2 Processed in Nebulosity and Photoshop Equipment: Skywatcher EQ5 Mount Orion 50mm Mini Guide Scope ZWO ASI120 MC imaging and guiding camera Canon 500D DSLR Takumar 70-20mm lens with x2 TeleConverter
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This image was captured with an ASI1600MM (Lx179@60and30s_RGBx20ea@60) It clearly needs more data but it was fun comparing this to the results I got with my OSC camera (QHY8) There isn't a huge difference - but there will be when I add Ha to this :-) Zoom in and you'll see black flecks across the image - not sure what's going on there as it appears on all subs (processed Flat/Bias - no need for darks - tested that) David
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Well this is my first ever DSO and too be honest i don't know if I can get anything extra out of it post process wise, I'm using CS5 and I've adjusted the levels and curves a touch, but can i get anything more out of it and also the stars at the edge of the frame seem to be warped how can I reduce or even remove this? Thanks in advance
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I guess this goes here. M31, shot under less than ideal conditions, towards a lit street with 3/4 of the moon up, 20x3m (1hr) at 75mm, cal. 31dfb, preproc. DSS, final workup PS CS2, PHD guiding w/ QHY5 Mono cam, capture with Backyard EOS.
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I decided it was about time I had a go at Andromeda, so with 2 clear nights this week I've managed to gather just shy of 7hrs worth of colour and Ha for the star-forming regions. I've had a couple of realisations while working on this: It's MASSIVE! This is a 2-panel mosaic and it still only just fits! It's a real challenge to process. Even with a fresh set of decent flats, I had real trouble combining the 2 halves. Don't think I've quite got it right yet. It's one of those targets where I think, if I started again from scratch with the processing it would look completely different each time! I might try again some time, as I'm not happy with all aspects of the image... Also, I would like a bit more colour data for the faint areas. Colour: 2 x 26 x 300s Ha: 2 x 7 x 600s Camera: 450d, modded Scope: Skywatcher 150PDS Mount: Vixen GP (getting long in the gear tooth now!) Any tips on processing M31 would be greatly appreciated! M31 was actually the first DSO I ever attempted capturing on camera. At least my new version is better than that!
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This is just a log of my observations last night from my balcony. It has quite a restricted view due to it being recessed so the floor above me gets in the way. It faces south-east-east and I have around 80-90 degrees of azimuth view. If you’re prepared to watch the constellations appear it is ok and put up with the streetlights on the paths it’s ok. I have places nearby where I can set up to get a better view of the sky but it’s summers and I could hear some people having a party in the park. I thought I’d leave them to it as it will be cold in the winter and the night time park will hopefully be empty! I was using my 102mm Mak on an eq2. I’d been hoping to have another attempt at the Ring Nebula in Lyra but the floor above me was getting in the way. I should have got out a bit sooner – with it not really getting dark enough until ~2330 and it going out of view for my viewing spot I’ve only got a short window of opportunity for this target at the moment. So I settled for Albireo. This was the first time I’d gone for this double in Cygnus and it’s a lovely sight. A warm orange spot with it’s hot blue partner. It’s not as hard to split as the Double double (which isn’t hard either but it’s the only double I’ve seen so far which I know the name of J ). I then decided to try and find M31 which isn’t visible to the naked eye for my location but the Andromeda constellation was easy to make out by following along from the belly of Pegasus. M31 proved a hard target to find at first. I’d initially started to use the two stars I could see that formed the waist of Andromeda which seemed from Stellarium could be used as a pointer up towards M31 but no amount of wriggling the scope whilst moving up worked so I consulted Stellarium again. Although I can’t see Polaris to polar align I can get a good enough polar alignment by pointing the polar axis north and the latitude for my location. So I could see that if I went up to the centre of the cross of Cygnus (Sadr), moved my declination up a couple of degrees and then scanned back with RA I might hit M31. Whilst getting my up and down mixed up on my declination axis, I happened across a star cluster which took me by surprise a bit. It seemed that I’d mistakenly found M29 after checking with Stellarium. After M29 I decided to put the scope in the right position I’d intended to scan back to M31 from Sadr in Cygnus. This approach didn’t help either! Back to the drawing board. I used the star near the head of Andromeda as a guide next and moved my declination up whilst giving the scope a wiggle and M31 came in to view. In my little Mak it was only the smudge of the centre but I was surprised how big the smudge was. I was expecting the core to appear smaller but I would estimate that I could see around 0.2 to 0.3 of a degree (I was using a 20mm Erfle which gives me ~1 degree in my scope). Having found M31 I was starting to notice more stars in the sky now. I could see the two brightest stars of Aries and the Triangulum so decided to attempt M33. I spent ages trying to find this but couldn’t do it. After doing some research today though it seems that M33 surface brightness is very low so maybe my scope is too small and I have to be a bit more patient when scanning the sky. The same research threw up the obvious question as to why I didn’t see M32. I should have been able to see it with M31 however I probably mistook it for a star. Now I know how to get M31 I’ll look out for it next time. My next target for the night was M34 as I felt this would be easy to find by scanning in RA from Almaak in Andromeda. Whilst lining up on Almaak I noticed this was double with a small companion. This was a double that I was going to put a name to! I’d seen a few without naming them but it’s so easy to find in Stellarium that I had no excuse although I was a bit thrown out when Stellarium didn’t show it as a double in ocular view. Some wiki research today confirmed this though and Almaak’s companion is a double itself but they are seperated by less than an arc second so not sure if I have the resolving power to try this when I go back to it. I found M34 after looking at the Almaak double. It wasn’t hard to find this time. Whilst the open clusters are nice and I like the way they jump out at you as you’re scanning across I must admit I preferred viewing M13 when I first found it. Even though I couldn’t really resolve stars in M13 I just found it a more exciting target. I suppose as it seems like a galaxy within a galaxy. I could now see Jupiter rising through some trees in the distance so tried to get the double cluster but I was just restricted by the floor above again and I could only see the southern half of Cassiopeia so I went to M45 which I could just see as a smudge 20 degrees or so above the horizon. There’s no way I can get all of the Pleiades in my FOV but it was fun scanning around it and all the other stars appear within it. Finally Jupiter had cleared the trees so I concentrated on this now. The seeing was quite bad, the transparency was getting worse (a haze was starting to develop around the planet) and Jupiter was still quite low.I found that my 10mm plossl was giving me a bit too much magnification and I was better of using my 15mm or my 20mm erfle with the barlow cap in the end to give ~100x magnification. Detail was hard to make out though and I was restricted to seeing 2 bands of brick colour on against the cream background. Unfortunately the moons were nicely spread out this time; I’d been hoping for a repeat of when I watched one of the rise from behind Jupiter a week ago. I’m looking forward to when Jupiter starts rising earlier in the autumn so I can view it higher in the sky to beat the seeing before the Sun rises. So that was last night on my balcony waiting for the earth to spin. Next week looks good my way for weather so hopefully I can repeat it soon.
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