Andromeda (with Triangulum)

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Here's my first proper attempt on Andromeda with my 200mm L lens on a modded 100D. About 1h30m of data at f3.5 in 75 and 60 second subs. Shot earlier this month down in Cornwall, the processing was a bit of a battle but I'm very happy with it, although there's always room for improvement. The above is a crop, the full frame is here if anyone is interested.

Also, here's a reprocessed shot of Andromeda and Triangulum together taken with a 50mm lens.

The bright star in the middle is Mirach, a red giant. Here's the Moon pasted in to give a sense of scale.

Hope you like them, all feedback welcome.

[Horwig]

Love the wide field, nice to see DSO targets in context.

Huw

[MilwaukeeLion]

Like you added moon for scale, three terrific images ! 

[nucdoc]

Very nice !

Love the perspective of the widefield

[Stu]

I don't think I've seen these two in a widefield shot like that before, very nice!

[xtreemchaos]

great shots mate, i do like a nice widefield.  well done. thanks for sharing  charl.

[Paul73]

Cracking shot. Don't know why more people don't try this one?

We forget that the moon is actually quite small / these targets are pretty big! I remember thinking how small the dim moon looked while stargazing during the eclipse.

Paul

[laudropb]

Very nice images. Good idea to paste in the Moon to give a sense of scale. Thanks for posting.

[Rob63]

What a great idea, the moon reference image really brings home just how large an area M31 covers.

[callisto]

Great sense of scale with the second shot, well done 

[Tim99]

Really nice!  I like the wide field shots.  Keep em' coming.

[Ouroboros]

Very nice .... and as said above, an unusual shot with both galaxies in the same frame. It reminds me of how I scan that part of the sky with bins. Find Mirach. Go up to M31 and then down about the same distance down to the Triangulum. The other thing that's good to see illustrated is the fact we all know that M31 has several times the apparent diameter of the Moon. Non-astronomers are puzzled by that when I've told them. "Why haven't I noticed it then if it's so big?" They ask.

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Thanks everyone, sounds like the wide shot of the two galaxies is a hit. I may put in a bit more time cleaning up the background if I can find the time. Here's a wider shot showing the two galaxies relative to the Milky Way and Cassiopeia taken on the 14th of last month.

It's 38 minutes with a kit lens at f5.0 on my modded 1100D.

 It reminds me of how I scan that part of the sky with bins. Find Mirach. Go up to M31 and then down about the same distance down to the Triangulum. The other thing that's good to see illustrated is the fact we all know that M31 has several times the apparent diameter of the Moon. Non-astronomers are puzzled by that when I've told them. "Why haven't I noticed it then if it's so big?" They ask.

That's how I find Andromeda too, start at Mirach and go up to a fainter star, then a fainter star again, and Andromeda is just above and to the right of that one. It's handy that Triangulum is the same distance from Mirach in the other direction. Reading your post I've just had an idea of how to illustrate why Andromeda is hard to spot despite its size.

[callisto]

Excellent 

Mark