M31

[Starlight 1]

Why is it I can never work out how to get a good image, image(1) 1x 1200s lum is showing more then image( 2) 3x900s+the 1x1200s Lum .   ok Phd was not so good on night 2 . yes I have lost the M32 on the top .

[wimvb]

Image 1 looks brighter, but it has a lot more noise. Brighter images are only good if they have less noise and are not over exposed.

My guess is that you can get better results from image 2 than from image 1 with carefull processing. The core of M31 seems over exposed in both images.

Are these images processed in any way (other than stacking for image 2)?

[Squiddy]

I worked a little with this image, and there is a lot of detail in it I must say...

[RayD]

That's pretty good.  Shame you had to crop out M110, but the detail here is really coming out. 

As noted above, the core on M31 is a little blown out, but otherwise nice detail 

[alacant]

On 12/9/2016 at 21:28, Starlight 1 said:

never work out how to get a good image,

Not sure if you mean fitting in the whole of the galaxy. Maybe you are using too long a fl telescope? A lens set at 200 or 300mm would get you everything. HTH.

[ollypenrice]

The top image is black clipped so lots of data has been discarded. (The black point was brought in too far to the right in Levels.) The second one is good with a nice reprocess by Squiddy who has controlled the core nicely. Extracting the core detail (hints of spiral arm) is not so much about taking short exposures as of finding ways to enhance the contrast.

Olly

[Stub Mandrel]

Why not combine the long and short exposures to get a stab at all the detail?