M31 with WO 80/500 SD II

[robj64]

Hi friends,i posted my shot to last night.

wo 80/500 sd II

canon 550d no mod

eq5 syscan 

45x60"    iso 1600  7dark  4 bias 

unguided.

[Marky1973]

Nice detail coming out in the dust lanes! Obviously there is a colour balance issue, but much better than anything I ever managed unguided! The edges of the images look a bit "messy" which may be stacking artifacts. If you crop the edges of the image before you play around with levels it usually gives you a "cleaner" graph/curve to work with. 

Have a fiddle with the colour balance and add some flats (you didn't mention them) and you'll be on to winner!

[Adam J]

1 hour ago, robj64 said:

Hi friends,i posted my shot to last night.

wo 80/500 sd II

canon 550d no mod

eq5 syscan 

45x60"    iso 1600  7dark  4 bias 

unguided.

 

Bias Frames come at little cost in time, so no reason not to grab 30 or more of them 4 is insufficient. As with a short exposure its mostly read noise you are dealing with I would say they are quite important. Apart from that try individually manipulating each colour channel in levels until you get a neutral star colour. Its very difficult to tease out much in the way of true colour information with M31 using short exposures on a DSLR due to the high colour noise. With some flats you will start noticing big improvements. 

Like Marky said though you have managed to capture the dust lanes well and this is a promising result.

[robj64]

another elaboration shot