M31 - Andromeda galaxy

[tingting44]

Hi, think ive just about got to the end of this image, its been one of the hardest images to process to date, it was also my 1st time imaging an object over 1 night

I 1st captured night 1 data on the 21'st September 2014 which consisted of 25 subs giving me 4.16 hours on M31

here is what 1 ten min subs looks like with no processing done at all

M31  (single RAW 10min sub - NO PROCESSING) by tingting44, on Flickr

 

and here are a few versions from night 1 data...(these were processed last year)

M31 - WIP by tingting44, on Flickr

 

M31 - Negative B&W - WIP by tingting44, on Flickr

 

M31 (Pixinsight) by tingting44, on Flickr

 

Then the next chance i got to grab night 2 data was 16'th Jan 2015! due to weather/work......

i managed to grab 19 more 10 min subs giving me another 3.16 hours of data, so in total of night 1 & 2 i now have a total of 7.32 hours on M31

i have been over and over this combined night 1 and 2 stack so many times lol, think im going to now file it away as "finished" for now, till i get more data later on in the year......maybe

Well here is the final image consisting of 7.32 hours of 10 min subs (44 subs), all images have dark/flat/bias calibration frames 

M31 - Finished by tingting44, on Flickr

The equipment used...

SW 130-pds

HEQ5

Baader LP filter

SW Coma corrector

Canon 7D

also thought id show a quick process of trying to get a decent mask in Pixinsight to protect the background and stars, it was a right pig, lol

jobs a goodun by tingting44, on Flickr

[SkyJamie]

Brilliant work Martin and great to see how you progressed

[style121]

This is easily one of the best shots i've seen of Andromeda, superb work!

[davedownsouth]

Excellent final image, great job 

[Davey-T]

Excellent M31 Martin, never tire of seeing images of it.

Dave

[tingting44]

Thank you kindly all, still not 100% happy with the core, but thats something i can concentrate on when it comes round again, by adding some shorter subs to this current image to help me control the core more, but then im dying to try M33 so not sure how much of a look in  M31 will get next season......

[kenny k]

Lovely image,the time & effort put in has definetly paid off...well done

Kenny

[davefrance]

Lovely image, I applaud your patience and dedication.

[Adamar98]

Kudos.

[toxic]

well there's a job well done mate nice image your single sub is better than my stacked image lol welldone.

[griz11]

Excellent job. Like the way you showed the stages of it coming together.

Griz

[swag72]

A great image - Well done!

[damnut]

Absolutely awesome. Thanks for posting the images and the info in pixinsight. Congrats.

[tingting44]

aww thanks all, means a lot reading all your kind comments

[ollypenrice]

Good stuff, certainly. Very much so.

I'd just watch that inner core, which is starting to look slightly stellar. Blending in a softer stretch would be easy enough, I think.

Olly

[tingting44]

Good stuff, certainly. Very much so.

I'd just watch that inner core, which is starting to look slightly stellar. Blending in a softer stretch would be easy enough, I think.

Olly

Thank you kindly Olly

yes the core is a bit pants, I might have a play about with layers in photoshop, I have had hardly any experience using layers so a good bit of practice, till I manage to grab some shorter subs at least....

[ollypenrice]

Thank you kindly Olly

yes the core is a bit pants, I might have a play about with layers in photoshop, I have had hardly any experience using layers so a good bit of practice, till I manage to grab some shorter subs at least....

I doubt that you need shorter subs. This is often a bit of a myth (though not for the Trapezium!) Just have a look at the linear image to see what the unstretched core looks like. You can then give it a custom stretch in Curves which ignores the rest of the image. Get yourself a nice smooth core and then paste the main image on top of it. You can use masks if you like but a soft edged eraser at low opacity can be used to take off the top core. A good trick is to start with a large eraser and make it progressively smaller as you take off iterations at about 10% opacity each time. I've been called a barbarian for using this method    but only after I've described it. 

That's how I did the core on our M31 anyway.

Olly

[tingting44]

Thanks Olly, i might just give that a go today, ill let you know how i get on

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Very nice work!

[tingting44]

Very nice work!

Thank you

[robbie c]

Great image all your hard work has paid off, its one of the best I've seen well done 

[tingting44]

Great image all your hard work has paid off, its one of the best I've seen well done 

Thank you ever so much Robbie! your too kind

[Vox45]

Lovely final image, good job

[tingting44]

Thank you kindly vox

[Vox45]

Thank you kindly vox

I am always impressed by the amount of hard work, knowledge and dedication that goes into a picture like this ... Kudos to you