First M31 widefield with old film lens

[pixueto]

This is my first serious test picture with an old film soligor 200mm 4.5F lens after sorting out my focusing problems with this equipment. Certainly the picture is far from perfect (the vignetting is terrible) and I would very much welcome your opinion and suggestions. I used a CLS light pollution filter and took over 2 hours worth of 4 min subs. Unfortunately the moon was out there and it was quite a windy night so I didn't bother much about accurate polar or drift alignment, let alone autoguiding so tracking might not be perfect. I also took dark, bias and flat frames but I changed the focus by accident when removing the camera so the flat frames may not be accurate. I would love to hear your opinion about cromatic aberration (I'm attaching the image that came out of DSS with the cursor on a star to see that more clearly) and the quality of the lens and I was hoping someone could comment on that and on the overall picture.

Many thanks

[nmoushon]

Not bad at all! The flats should help some with the vignetting but since you knocked the focus it might not be so much. But there are some PS techniques that can take care of most of it. Only other critique is I think you need to take a batch of much shorter subs (30-60sec). It will help you manage the core and with the star color. At 4min the core and the star are washed out.

[pixueto]

Thank you very much. I did a bit of work in Pixinsight to try to remove some of the uneven illumination. This is what I got after reducing a bit the picture.

[Gina]

Very nice

[pixueto]

Very nice

Thanks Gina. I might try and reduce the stars following mark's tutorial on that. I think it might help with the overall picture.

Did you manage to get the mask printed out?

[Gina]

Thanks Gina. I might try and reduce the stars following mark's tutorial on that. I think it might help with the overall picture.

Did you manage to get the mask printed out?

Not yet had other things to do.

[KevUU]

I have to say I really like the first pic, it has a real character to it that I like. Not that I know much of anything about AP being a newbie visual sort, but there's a sort of arty quality that appeals. Thank you!