First M31, First Guided, First Light C80ED

[jnc71106]

this is my first ever attempt at M31 it is my first guided picture and also first light with my new C80ED

i realise the picture isnt amazing and that it needs loads more data but thought i would get some thoughts on it first

had a few problems with an irratating security light in my next door neighbours garden so lost a load of my subs. seems to be some trailing in the pic but im no expert im sure others on here will be able to tell me what it is

10x 600s lights iso 800

5x 600s darks iso 800

will do flats in the morning

stacked in dss and played with curves/levels a bit in gimp

taken with

c80ed

canon 1000d (unmodified)

heq5 syntrek

qhy5 finderguider

[sgazer]

that is very good for your first attempt with that setup. It's not easy to get guiding right, let alone for 600s exposures as you have. The stars are slightly oblong towards the corners as the field isn't entirely flat with the frac, but I've always found the C80-ED to be a great scope for the money. I think with a bit more processing, the outer edges of the galaxy could be brought out without burning the inner core. The exposures are certainly long enough to have captured it, so I'm sure the data is there.

[Sam]

Looks pretty good to me - nice work!

[Shibby]

Nice one, the guiding looks good! I think you should be able to pull a lot more detail out by using 16-bit curves and flats.

[jnc71106]

Thanks everyone. I'm happy with the result considering the issues I had with lights and dew think i need a dew heater as it was quite bad last night

The finderguider worked a treat as well the phd graph was nice and flat apart from when a hedgehog gave me the fright of my life and I knocked the mount

Hopefully I can get out again soon and have another go

Jake

[cloudbuster]

that is very good for your first attempt with that setup. It's not easy to get guiding right, let alone for 600s exposures as you have. The stars are slightly oblong towards the corners as the field isn't entirely flat with the frac, but I've always found the C80-ED to be a great scope for the money. I think with a bit more processing, the outer edges of the galaxy could be brought out without burning the inner core. The exposures are certainly long enough to have captured it, so I'm sure the data is there.

I agree. a lovely image tho....well done!

[Simms]

Great shot at M31! I also took a pop at it last night and was relatively happy with the result - however I shot at ISO320 for 180secs and seemed to tease a bit more detail out - but then again I believe I am shooting with a faster scope (f5) - I have posted my image in another post. I used PHD also but with a webcam attached to my finderscope - I found that by 01:30 this morning the front element was gettting very dewed up so I kept getting a lot of low SNR errors from PHD. Still, love your attempt and you at least made the effort to get the whole thing in, I didn`t realise how big it was!

[jnc71106]

Great shot at M31! I also took a pop at it last night and was relatively happy with the result - however I shot at ISO320 for 180secs and seemed to tease a bit more detail out - but then again I believe I am shooting with a faster scope (f5) - I have posted my image in another post. I used PHD also but with a webcam attached to my finderscope - I found that by 01:30 this morning the front element was gettting very dewed up so I kept getting a lot of low SNR errors from PHD. Still, love your attempt and you at least made the effort to get the whole thing in, I didn`t realise how big it was!

I was looking at your picture this morning sitting in my garden it's is a real cracker. I did take some subs at iso1600 but the noise was very bad. My scope is a bit slow f7.5 I'm keeping my eye out for a field flattener/reducer but from what I have read the WO FF II is the one to get and they are very hard to find now

I will try with my OO newt next time as that is f4.5 so quite a bit faster don't think I will get the whole of it in though

Jake

[jnc71106]

got my self a copy of photoshop cs3 never used it before i think im heading in the right direction with the processing but being a bit of a newb im not sure

anyone with a bit more experiance able to comment

thank you

jake

[sgazer]

I think it needs some flats to remove the gradient (if you haven't done that already), then you can stretch the curves without having that central 'glow'

[fatwoul]

If I can get my guiding as good as yours at 600s, I will be very happy. M31 is also notoriously difficult to image without blowout, and you've done an admirable job of showing dust lanes whilst not overexposing the core. Nicely done.

[ncjunk]

Very nice image, just practise that processing (I am not very good at processing so cant help)