M 31 Andromeda Galaxy, 41 hours and 27megapixel mosaic

[nightvision]

Awesome!!!

Falls off seat! 

[johnrt]

I have nothing to say about this other than stupidly good. You can get lost amongst the dust and clusters in there for hours.

[Astropy]

Still can't pick my jaw off the floor, this is just absolutely amazing 

[Knight of Clear Skies]

I'm just gobsmacked, stunning piece of work.

[PNJ]

masterclass   at its best, 

paul j

[Baffa]

Helt galet!

Think I just spent 20 mins looking on your image, I just can't get enough of all the eye candy presented in this amazingly professional way.

Well done!

[Dreadz]

Awesome, in the truest sense of the word! Congratulations on a truly epic accomplishment.

Sent from my GTi9300 using random spelling mistake generator!!!!

[gooseholla]

Epic picture dude.

[goodricke1]

I hope the aliens in M31 will get to see this some day! Completely splendid!!

[Spoon]

Wow. No other word for it

[jonnopfc]

Images like yours just go to show what can be achieved by backyard astronomers. Fantastic image.

[kaybee]

This has just made my morning.  Stunning piece of work - well done!

~Kb

[Gina]

 Absolutely amazing piece of work and image   Congratulations! :icon_salut:   Truly "out of this world" in both senses

Edited May 2, 2014 by Gina

[pterodroma]

Breathtakingly beautiful image

[tingting44]

that is a seriously insane image!!! got it as my desktop wallpaper (i hope you dont mind)

[billhinge]

Great image, well done

What I find fascinating are the red nebula, eg C275, just imagine what it would look like if we were resident locally in Andromeda!

[james_screech]

Absolutely amazing!!! Well done, a LOT of work  went into that.

James

[fwm891]

That is just incredible, true dedication to: capture, processing, research and annotation

[Coco]

Outstanding!!

[iksobarg]

BRILLIANT!!!!

I'm seeing about having this printed as a poster!!!

[iksobarg]

...which I would gladly pay for... $$$$$$...

YEAH!!!

[iksobarg]

Is it too soon to ask what your next target will be?

Thanks for sharing such beautiful images, Jonas.

[Grinde]

I want to extend my most humble and sincere thanks to all of you who enjoyed and commented my image!!! It's been a long journey and I'm very happy to be able to share this epic "space-voyage to andromeda and back" with all of you. Seeing so many ppl being inspired and encouraged in exploring this fantastic galaxy really makes my day! It definatelly makes up for all my hard work, and it's already making me look forward to my next project, what ever that may be!

A lot of ppl might think I'm crazy, spending all this time and and money on astrophotography... But I'm really making my childhood dream come true, exploring nebulas, galaxies and beyond. My telescope is my spaceship and the ccd is my window. I'm living my dream. Those who don't, they are the ones who's crazy

So to all of you... Thanks!

I forgot that the AG is at f/3.8...that explains a lot lol. Most people would do long exposures combined with short ones to control the core and just do layer masking in the processing to feather the core out. Is the main reason you didn't use this more common technique because of your clouds and seeing, which I completely understand why it would limit you, or is there another reason why?

At f/3.8 and under my skies, 3 minutes was enough to make the background in my subs sky-limited. Increasing sub-lengths beyond that won't bring out fainter background-galaxies (since the sky is "outshining" the weaker ones). In fact, longer exposures would reduce the dynamic range in this photo, bloating more stars and blowing out the core of M 31, so I see no point of going for even longer exposures on this target since its entire dynamic range fits within my cameras dynamic range. The only target I've shot so far that motivates the hassle of multi-length exposures is M42. But for all other than M42, I stick with a single sub-length for all my filters.

Note that these are all my personal opinions based on my own experiences, not to be taken too seriously

Epic piece of work! You surely have your astrograph working to the fullest potential!

Just out of curiosity: Can you see any variance in the brightness of Hubble's V1 Cepheid, since the image was stretched over several months?

Again, great work.

Pieter

Great idea!!

But unfortunately I belive the subs for that particular mosaic-panel was shot during a short period of a few days in the same week, but I'll definately have a look! Perhaps compare it with the earlier M31's I shot with my 190MN.

Great work Jonas, and it was a real pleasure listening to your lecture about this earlier this year.

Thank you!

And once again the pleasure was all mine, thanks for giving me the opportunity of coming down & meeting you all, what a fantastic astro-community you have!

Images like yours just go to show what can be achieved by backyard astronomers. Fantastic image.

Hearing other people being inspired by my work is making it all the hard work worth it. Every single night of cursing the moon, clouds, photoshop & other infernal forces us astrophotographers have to fight all to often Thanks!

 Absolutely amazing piece of work and image    Congratulations!     Truly "out of this world" in both senses 

Thanks Gina! "Out of this world" was my state of mind while processing this... Over and over again I found my self not processing, but exploring

that is a seriously insane image!!! got it as my desktop wallpaper (i hope you dont mind)

BRILLIANT!!!!

I'm seeing about having this printed as a poster!!!

I don't mind my work being used as wallpaper or toiletpaper as long as it's for personal use

But just a quick reminder to all of you thinking of printing it: at home with your own printer is OK, but taking it to a printing-lab without my permission to do so would be a copyright-infringement and against the law & so on.

(And don't think of sending it to a magazine under another name, because I will find you Just like I found someone else posting my Rosette Nebula last year (ended up in S@N magazine). We settled things like gentlemen with no need for Judge Judy to step in... But if it happens again, I will come after you. 

Of course I have my self to blame by posting stuff in full resolution, but I guess it's the closest thing I have to "artistic pride", I don't want to castrate my work by downsizing it or slapping enormous copyright-labels & watermarks all over the image.

Don't exploit my work, explore it! 

[Grinde]

Brilliant image. But... where do you go from here? Your very own DSS perhaps  

ChrisH

Great work Jonas.  An incredible amount of effort and dedication must have gone into this, and you've created a truly remarkable outcome, so congratulations and thanks for sharing!   

Dare I ask...what's your next project going to be?!   

Is it too soon to ask what your next target will be?

Thanks for sharing such beautiful images, Jonas.

That's a great question, where do I go from here? To Procence, actually. 

My rig will be transported down to the new remote observatory this summer where it will share roof with 3 remote rigs. My horrible Swedish seeing is holding me back too much since I want to fully unleash my rigs potential under perfect skies. Everyone who've visited Olly Penrice's location knows what I'm talking about, there's no coincidence so much astronomy goes on in that region.

So with significantly darker skies and probably 4 times as many clear nights as my part of Sweden, I will probably start doing real big & crazy(stupid) projects since I have a hard time saying no to challanges. & I belive Mr.Penrice once dared me to make a full mosaic of the entire cygnus-loop at this resolution, so yeah, I'm just getting started   

Great image, well done

What I find fascinating are the red nebula, eg C275, just imagine what it would look like if we were resident locally in Andromeda!

Funny, I know exactly which cluster you meant by reading your post!    I remember myself thinking exactly the same thing! Just imagine the view from those locations, especially from C275! One can dream...

[IanWatkins]

Just spent another 30 minutes looking through this image and I kept seeing things I didn't see a few days ago when I first saw it. Really is rather special.

Cheers

Ian