M31 .. So tough

[Coco]

They say try to get on with your neighbours … well am sorry I can’t get on with M31… I find it too challenging and try to avoid imaging it.. last week I used it to test 2x2 Binning on the ATIK 8300, whilst impressed with the resolution of the camera binned I still can’t image M31 properly the way I’ve seen it posted on here ..

Anyway here is another attempt

Note: You can see the 1.25 filters nipping the 8300 chipset on short exposures

Lum filter Bin 1x1 - 24 x 3 mins

RGB filters Bin2x2 – 24 x 2 mins each

Any tips on M31 would be gratefully received..

M31 Core

M110

M32

[BernieD]

Hi Coco,

I was imaging M31 as well this weekend (I posted the image in the forum).

The only thing I would say is: you need more light, the image is still noisy... I did it 24x10 min.

Otherwise, everything seems to be perfect with your setup, and I am impressed by the field of view you get with your cam!

Cheers

[Earl]

Can you host the combined linear image somewhere?

[Spikey]

I think thats a really nice image but I couldn't resist having a play.

[mark7331]

I'm amazed at the level of detail you've pulled out of M31. Wonderful.

I don't know it this is useful but all I can suggest is when recently taking M42 I took 2 minute exposures and the core looked pretty blown out but when processing with PixInsight I used a HDRWaveletTransform to reduce the contrast on the core. The result was the detail of the outer nebula was clear and the core was visible with detail without a whitewash.

Here's a quick run of your core image with the wavelets run.

Hope it helps

Mark

[Deneb]

Is your blue channel slightly out or those just reflections...