Playing with Andromeda in the rain

[cfpendock]

This weather at least has provided some time to have another go at my favourite galaxy. This is a widefield image taken on December 10th, made up from 11 individual images stacked and fiddled with in photoshop, each image between 2 and 3 minutes exposure, between f2.8 and f4.0. 200mm lens on a Canon camera strapped to my telescope. There is still insufficient detail of the core - I think some more exposures at up to f16 might help. Also I would like more detail in the nebulosity, perhaps more exposures would help? Hope you like it. Chris

[Gina]

You found a gap in the rain You even found a gap in the clouds at night That's amazing A nice M31 too

[Mzungu]

lovely - good effort

[cantab]

Really nice image. It doesn't look like galaxy pics normally do. I think it's a combination of the uniformity of the stellar background and the blueish tint and detail on the galaxy itself. The diffraction spikes you get from the camera lens's diaphragm are different to what's normally seen too.

[cfpendock]

Thanks everyone. Yes, Gina, I found a gap in the clouds, but it was actually the last one we had.

Cantab: the different diffraction spikes are the result of using different apertures: I use small aperture for bright bits and bigger for darker bits, hence the rather strange spikes, but I don't mind them.... I know what you mean about the galaxy looking different - I think that for some reason the colour density has turned out higher than normal, although it doesn't seem to have affected the background too much.

Chris