m31

[StarRaver]

Morning SGL,

last night I was luckily enough to capture M31 just after sunset, I managed to capture 48 minutes worth of data before the clouds decided to bring an end to my imaging session. ( still patiently waiting for a full clear night )

With this shot i decided to up the iso to 1600, as i was having a little trouble with tracking, and with the clouds slowly rolling in I didnt really want to waste what little time i had trying to sort it out.

This shot comprises of 48 lights at 1600iso, for 60secs, 25 darks, 25 bias, and 25 flats ( yep finaly decided it was time to start using them )

stacked in dss and a very quick attempt at processing,

Hopefully when I get anouther clear night I can get some more data to try sort out the SNR, and will I will try to get some shorter exposures for the core detail.

Thank you for looking

Dale

[chrisfellows]

Wow! This still amazes me that such detailed images like this can be captured!

Well done with this one!

fingers crossed for a full cloudless night haha.

chris

[StarRaver]

thank you, just realised i have placed this in the wrong forum lol, Ah well

[sausages]

Yes nice indeed!

[VigdisVZ]

That's a nice image! Amazing amount of coverage and detail. DO you have a PNG version or something, I think SGL's gallery adds another generation of JPG loss to it.

[StarRaver]

yes here is the png version at 43.5mb,

I might have another go at re processing ( not my strong point ) when I get a bit more time as I only had a quick go at it this morning and still learning the basics, The core isnt as good as it can be with what data i have,

the next clear night I will do some shorter exposures to capture the core detail and add to the data i have at the moment,

[StarRaver]

yes here is the png version at 43.5mb,

Not sure why it is saying 1.89mb though

[poogle]

Very nice indeed! Is it taken under a very dark sky?

[StarRaver]

no not at all, taken from my back garden, at lesst 20 -30 meters from a duel carridgeway with lots of street lighting about, no light pollution filter was used

[poogle]

Would you mind attaching a single light frame for comparison? I tried M31 the other day at ISO1600 for 60s, but my exposures are really bright with the histogram at about 3/4 on the x-axis

[StarRaver]

Yeah of course, but I will gave to do it later on this evening when I finish work as I can only reply using me phone, plus all subs are at home aswell.

[J_M_Franklin]

Very nice image, it's a while since i have been able to capture one of M31 as good...well done.

Jim

[StarRaver]

Thank you Jim I was very pleased with it as it is only my 3rd attempt at m31 as I have only just got in to this hobby about 2 months ago, and only had my mount and scope for a month.

Just trying to get my head around the processing side of it at the moment.

Things are looking good for getting the core data tonight unless the British weather has other plans, fingers crossed lol

[stem1989]

amazing detail! love it, well done

[ollypenrice]

I doubt that you need short exposures for the core. I bet the data is in there. What does the core look like in the linear (unstretched) image? If it's a brightish dot in the middle then you already have the data and you could do a core control curve or two like this...

...to make a version in which the core looks right but the rest of the image doesn't. Then you layer them together in using Ps. The simple way is to put the core only version underneath and use a well feathered partial erasor to take of the burned out top layer where you want to. DO a bit at a time and make the eraser brush smaller as you take more off near the very core. Or there's the fancy way; http://www.astropix.com/HTML/J_DIGIT/LAYMASK.HTM

Note that the curve in the screen grab is supposed to end in a straight line but it seems to be drooping a bit. Ooops!

Olly

http://ollypenrice.smugmug.com/Other/Best-of-Les-Granges/22435624_WLMPTM#!i=2251020561&k=DtkhGGw

[petercoxphoto]

Yep - it's important to watch out for highlight areas when processing. When trying to brighten things overall we do tend to look at the areas to be brightened only and ignore the highlights.

Cheers,

Peter

[springbok]

Very nice Dale, especially from our light polluted skies here in Plymouth.

Cheers,

Grahame.

[StarRaver]

Thank you Grahame, yes the lp here is rather bad but not as bad as some places I recon. Can't wait till I get a lp filter to see the difference in the quality of the final results

[springbok]

Yes I'm sure LP is worse in larger cities. At least we can escape to Dartmoor or the coast pretty quickly for darker skies.

Re LP filter, have you looked into the Astronomik EOS clip filters, they work pretty well.

http://www.astronomik.com/en/clip-filter-system.html

[StarRaver]

Yes I have had a look at the eos clip filters, and pondering about getting one. But they aint cheap.

Plus I dont know which one to get, they have a cls filter and a ccd-cls filter, whats the difference between the two, and how much better are they than the SW lp filter and all the other cheaper ones ?

See I will be up grading to a ccd camera in the near future as i dont want to mod my canon, and if i bought a clip in filter once i up grade it would just be sat there not being used. so have also been looking at the 2 inch filters as they can be used for both cameras but again still dont know what one lol.

Sorry about the multiple questions lol