Help Processing M31

[Galactic Wanderer]

Hello all,

After imaging Andromeda last night, I was have been stacking and trying  to process it but it hasn't come to much unfortunately. After looking at certain videos and demonstrations, I have started to give up on this. Is it to do with my data being rubbish or me not being able to process?

Thanks,

Seb

[Oddsocks]

Is the posted image  just a single frame or is it the stacked result?

What was the camera used, colour DSLR or mono cooled CMOS and what type of telescope?

Assuming this is a single frame the obvious problems are:

1. strong light pollution gradient, not surprising though if you are imaging from your given location, a LP filter may be helpful.

2. Some vignetting present, calibration with flats will remove this

3. Vertical banding present, calibration with bias frames will reduce this.

4. If using a mono CMOS or DLSR use a master bias as a dark in the calibration and stacking program.

5. If using a DSLR make sure the viewfinder window at the back of the camera is covered during astro photography.

6. Very bloated and distorted stars on the right side of the image, most likely the camera or focuser is sagging, or if a Newtonian telescope the collimation primary/secondary/focuser alignment may be off. Are you using a flattener?

If this is a single frame posted and the background gradients were removed in post processing then the resulting single frame image would have only a very little remaining data so you would need to combine at least 40 or more images of this quality before being able to reveal the galaxy structure during post processing.

On the evidence seen in the posted image, and without full information about your setup when you took the image and whether this is a single sub or the output after stacking I would say the priority would be to sort the camera alignment / collimation issues, look at adding a lP filter if imaging from a light polluted London site, make sure you take calibration frames and apply them in the stacking program and take many, many, more sub frames to add to the stack.