First Good Crack at M31

[The Admiral]

This is my first good go at imaging M31 with proper astro gear since my dismal attempt to image through a spotting 'scope a year ago. As per usual my gear consists of an Altair Wave 102mm triplet APO mounted on a Nexstar 6/8SE altazimuth mount (though some may dismiss this last item as not 'proper' astro-imaging gear ), TS Photoline 2" 0.79x reducer/flattener coupled to a Fuji X-T1 (not optimally spaced). 22nd September 2016. I stacked 152 x 30s frames in DSS, along with darks, flats and bias frames (50 of each), processed in StarTools, and finally honed in Lightroom. Better than I expected to be honest; I think the seeing must have been particularly good that night.

I hope you like.

Ian

[StargeezerTim]

30 second subs! 

Thats brilliant...

[Uplooker]

Well done, that is very impressive.

loads of detail

[The Admiral]

2 hours ago, StargeezerTim said:

30 second subs! 

Thanks for your kind comment Tim. Yup! As you know, that's the only way to go with Alt-Az imaging! Mind you, as M31 was in an easterly direction it would have probably taken double the exposure duration without field rotation becoming problematic, although it would have shown up any weakness in the mount's tracking. Using a 30s exposure also means that I can use the camera's internal intervalometer, and not have to resort to gubbins plugged into it and breaching the camera's weather sealing (useful in the case of dewing).

Ian

[Gina]

Great start and already a good image with lots of detail - well done

[SteveNickolls]

A lovely image Ian, well done with such 'umble equipment.

Best Regards,
Steve