Images from 10/12/12

[Astronut1982]

Last Monday was amazingly clear up here in Edinburgh so I took the chance to pull an all nighter & image M31 & the Flame & Horsehead nebula.

I processed M31 three times until I got this image which I'm very happy with as it's probably the most detailed image I've taken so far. It consists of 117 x 60s subs for the core & 6 x 300s, 15 x 600s & 9 x 900s subs for the rest & was taken with a guided Celestron ED80 & an Astro modded Canon 1000D with an altair astro x0.8 flattener/ reducer which reduced the scope to f6. I was thinking of trying a few 20 or 25 min subs in order to capture the faintest edges of the galaxy & then add those to the image.

The Flame & Horsehead image is also the best I have managed so far of these two nebula although if you look at in in full resolution you can see very small black streaks. I believe this may be because I didn't take darks for these subs & just used older ones which were taken on a previous night when it was much warmer. I'm not sure if that is what the problem is or not but if anyone knows the reason then please let me know so I can sort it for the next time. The image is made up of 12 x 600s subs with darks & bias added & taken with the same scope & camera as M31.

Bothe images were stacked in DSS, Processed with PixInsight & given a final tweek & layered [in the case of M31] using PS6.

Any advice or constructive criticism is very welcome.

Thanks for looking,

Jeff

[Josh Wilson]

Those are wonderful images and I honestly have no advice. You've nailed it very well.

Josh

[Quatermass]

Both stunning images really worth an all nighter.

Sent from my GT-S5670 using Tapatalk 2

[atmenterprises]

Really great shots. Be proud of those!!

[Gina]

Wonderful images

As for suggestions :- M31 is perfect and I can't see any way to improve it - I would be very happy with that one. The Flame & Horsehead I think would stand a slight Levels lift to reduce the overall brightness - you're well clear of clipping AFAICS. Hope that helps.

[StuartJPP]

Very nice set, especially liking M31 with loads of depth and detail.

[Astronut1982]

Thanks for the very kind comments.

I'm very happy with M31 & I think it is my best image yet, I love the amount of nebulae that are visible & the depth of the image.

Gina,

I will take your advice about reducing the overall brightness on the Flame & Horsehead & see how that works out so thanks for that. I'm at the stage where I can use the use the basic settings in PixIsight & get nice images but I now want to pull as much detail from my images to make the best of the available data so any advice or constructive criticism on how to improve my processing & do that is very welcome.

It was a very clear (but very cold!) night last Monday so I decided it would be worth doing an all nighter to get as much data as possible. In this country as you'll no doubt know, you never know when the next night like this will come so I always try & take full advantage whenever I can. I was absolutely freezing when I got home but when I looked at the RAW images, I knew that it had been worth it.

Jeff

[SJJ]

Good nights work, well done.

[Martin-Devon]

Jeff, these are both excellent images - lovely work

[JamesF]

Very nice indeed. Well done.

James

[Raga]

Loving M31. Tons of detail and depth. Well worth the all nighter. Stunning.

[Stephen Green]

Two very nice images with very nice detail Jeff

Stephen