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First Andromeda

Tommy B

By Tommy B
in Imaging - Deep Sky

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Tommy B

Tommy B

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Hi folks,

Had a fairly good clear night yesterday so jumped at the chance to make my first attempt at M31. The Air was a bit iffy and the moon later came up adding some unwanted glow to the subs but all in all it it worked out ok. My polar alignment was also rather off but I managed to centre the galaxy again allowing me to keep shooting.

I still lack a few things like guiding and a field flattener as I just can't afford them right now but im glad that nice pics can still be taken without an all singing all dancing setup :)

Taken with my Equinox 80 pro on Neq6 mount and Canon 1000D at ISO 800. Stacked and Processed in Deep Sky Stacker and Photoshop 7.0

Lights - 52 x 180s

Darks - 27 x 180s

Flats - no flats sadly as this was my first attempt at creating them and they failed but managed to get a slightly improved result using RC astro Gradient Xterminator.

Advice and criticism are more than welcome :)

post-23860-133877663559_thumb.jpg

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Posted
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Hi folks,

Had a fairly good clear night yesterday so jumped at the chance to make my first attempt at M31. The Air was a bit iffy and the moon later came up adding some unwanted glow to the subs but all in all it it worked out ok. My polar alignment was also rather off but I managed to centre the galaxy again allowing me to keep shooting.

This is without doubt the best first attempt at anything that I've seen before :) especially M31 (your's puts my first attempt with my QHY8 completely in the shade).

Far from offering advice I might ask you for some har har!

David

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Tommy B

Tommy B

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This is without doubt the best first attempt at anything that I've seen before :) especially M31 (your's puts my first attempt with my QHY8 completely in the shade).

Far from offering advice I might ask you for some har har!

David

Thanks sand dune, and everyone else for the kind words. Ive had a go at a few other galaxies before which helped me with this image plus the Equinox 80 is just such an amazing little scope, tho I was quite suprised that it turned out this well. The core got a little burnt out in processing but I hear that can be sorted by taking some shorter exposures and merging them with the longer ones. Will have to swat up on that for the next time.

Best piece of advice I can think of is just to never give up no matter how bad your images look. Somehow if you just stick at it, it all starts coming together in the end and boy is that a great feeling when it does.

Question now is.....what to shoot next? :)

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SlipperySquid

SlipperySquid

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Keep your eye out for a second hand Skywatcher Field flattener on either here or astro buy and sell, it will sort out the elongated stars in the corners of the image and should tighten up stars in the image (Well it did for me :) ). They are not to expensive new and if you've been bitten by the imaging bug it's a worthwhile investment! (Though the skywatcher is cheaper than the William Optics field flattener it's the same :) )

Clear Skies,

Matt.

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Ivor Scope

Ivor Scope

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Hello, firstly, really great image.

I'm new to imaging with little experience of photography, may be a daft question, but this is why I joined; what are darks, flats and lights?

Also, i have a sw200 without motor, through getting good polar alignment I find that I can usually manually adjust to provide enough images for planets, but these are produced using the very basic default settings in registax. As yet I haven't even seen a galaxy due to poor conditions and being inexperienced. My second question is, is it possible to take decent ( not as good as yours) images using a manual set up, if so how many seconds / minutes of footage should I be aiming for.

Grateful for any advice.

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Tommy B

Tommy B

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Hello, firstly, really great image.

I'm new to imaging with little experience of photography, may be a daft question, but this is why I joined; what are darks, flats and lights?

Also, i have a sw200 without motor, through getting good polar alignment I find that I can usually manually adjust to provide enough images for planets, but these are produced using the very basic default settings in registax. As yet I haven't even seen a galaxy due to poor conditions and being inexperienced. My second question is, is it possible to take decent ( not as good as yours) images using a manual set up, if so how many seconds / minutes of footage should I be aiming for.

Grateful for any advice.

Hi Ivor Scope,

I started imaging last year with the same telescope you have. Adding the motor drive will help a lot to start with and will allow you to keep things in the field of view long enough to take good pics/video of the planets and moon. I was even able to take short exposures (1-30s) of the orion nebula which is what made me stick at it after wanting to throw the towel in. However most deep sky objects will require a better mount with more accurate tracking.

There is a lot to learn about astro imaging with a steep and at times very frustrating learning curve, but without a doubt the one tool you can't do without if you want to get serious is a little book by Steve Richards, called "Making Every Photon Count". Without this book my pic of m31 simply would not have happened.

It explains everything from darks and flats to what equipment to use.

Good luck with future imaging.

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