M31 & M45 @ 200mm

[blackparticle]

A couple from last night. I wasn't sure if the skies would clear so I set the mount up early and waited. I eventually got lucky at 1am so decided to just go with something simple.

I already had a few subs for Andromeda with my 200mm lens when I was testing it out for size so that seemed like the logical target.

Everything stacked in DSS, tweaked in Nebulosity and then finished off in PS4.

M31, M32 & M110 - Andromeda <65 x 180s - f/4> (20 darks)

Right towards the end of the night when the trees were about to get in the way of M31 above my head, I managed to get a few subs for the Pleiades. I'd not imaged this before, so again, more to test for size than anything else. It's a great object this one and I'm looking forwards to giving it a proper session when it gets to a suitable height in the sky.

M45 - The Pleiades <8 x 180s - f/4> (20 darks)

[rocketandroll]

Those are great! The Plaides looks awesome through the 200mm lens... I'll have to try that with mine once it's up high enough!!!

Ben

[blackparticle]

DSS won't let me do a x3 drizzle on a full DSLR frame so I went back and did just the main galaxy.

Unfortunately you can see the slightly distorted optics that this lens has.. Perhaps I should have stopped it up a bit from f/4? .. But it was cheap on eBay.

I'm very pleased with the overall result though. The main galaxy itself shows some nice detail and cloud structure.

[foundaplanet]

Nice to see a wide field of Andromeda.

The Pleiades well, they are a bit special aren't they..

Good images.

[Fenriz]

Cracking set of images you have there, I have been looking at the 200mm lens on eBay for my 1000d, £69 is a real bargain if it can get images like those.

[Dangerous-Dave]

Good shots, though I sense you had to struggle against the chromatic aberration of the lens a little. I used to own the Takumar 200mm/f4 and it requires a bit of stopping down.

If you do a lot of widefield, it is worth investing in an apo lens. I found the Leitz 180mm/f3.4 Telyt a decent lens while affordable on the second hand market. Sigma Apos might also be worth investigating.

[blackparticle]

I'd have to agree Dave. The lens takes fairly good shots when scaled down for screen so the aberration then gets lost in the shrinking. At full resolution, however, I think they do struggle a bit. I think stopping down too much from f/4 would also make it a bit slow for astro-photography. Still, much easier to carry around than a scope.

[cloudbuster]

Loving the wide field M31....this really is a very good pic, and one u should be proud of. and the Pleiades, well thats the first pic ive seen this early in the season. i thought i saw them through the light pollution over bristol the other night.

[neil groves]

_{The wide view of M31 is superb, how much of a crop is this from the original?}

_Neil.