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Andromeda Galaxy - work in progress


vlaiv

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Here is 3 hours of exposure of luminance - color is yet to come (hopefully tonight and tomorrow evening).

TS80 APO, ASI1600, Hutech IDAS LPS P2

180 x 1m lights at -20C, 256 darks/flats/flat darks

Conditions: Excellent high level transparency (AOD <0.1), local haze / mist (79m above sea level next to the river), good seeing, heavy LP (red zone)

m31-wip-optimized.png

I was quite taken by the size of the target, hopped to get it fully on sensor, but it looks like extends quite a bit more with faint outer halo.

All comments and critique are welcome.

Thanks for looking.

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2 hours ago, vlaiv said:

I was quite taken by the size of the target

It's one of the largest targets up there, but you need the right conditions,  and its obvious from your image,you have the right conditions. Many folk here from their 'normal observatories'   strain to see even the core!

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1 hour ago, Charic said:

It's one of the largest targets up there, but you need the right conditions,  and its obvious from your image,you have the right conditions. Many folk here from their 'normal observatories'   strain to see even the core!

Image might not be quite indicative of observing conditions at my site :D Personally I've only once seen hints of dust lanes (inner most) using 8" dob - all other times just bright core and nothing else.

1 hour ago, alacant said:

Lovely shot. But yeah. I found the same on aps-c with my 130pds and reducer at 588mm; still missing the outer bits:( Looks like say a 300mm lens may be the way to go for this target? Dunno. Mosaic?

I've forgot to mention - focal reducer / field flattener - so this was effectively around 380mm focal length with ASI1600 (four thirds) - so yes, probably mosaic - but maybe next year, I'm going to be lucky if I manage to capture color these two nights, after that according to forecast - not much opportunity until next moonless period, and then it will be too early to shoot - lights don't begin to die down until well past midnight.

1 hour ago, Knight of Clear Skies said:

Good result, I think you may have caught V1. The 1600MM Cool is a good match for imaging under light polluted skies as long exposures are not required to overcome read noise.

At 314mm focal length I was just able to fit it in with my reduced WO71. The deeper you go the more the halo shows.

I did not even look for it :D but idea is mind boggling, which one do you think is V1 (can't be sure if it is even there)?

image.png.1de412fc580ad6e03384c1c21ebedb1e.png

 

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Wow--I keep telling myself to get an ASI1600 and I keep baulking.  Amazing image.  How much of it is the camera and how much is the processing?  That one can't buy.  As with all great images--it does not look like an image--even at full resolution.  It looks like clear empty space as it should. 

Rodd

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34 minutes ago, Rodd said:

Wow--I keep telling myself to get an ASI1600 and I keep baulking.  Amazing image.  How much of it is the camera and how much is the processing?  That one can't buy.  As with all great images--it does not look like an image--even at full resolution.  It looks like clear empty space as it should. 

Rodd

Can't really tell. I do know that camera is great, at least compared to other cameras that I've used (not a wide selection though: QHY5IIL, ASI186MC, ASI178MMC).

With my data reduction, I'm quite specific in that I use my own workflow (with couple of my own algorithms) with ImageJ. I follow some of my own rules - like not using bias frames, and taking very many darks/flats/flat darks as possible - in this case 256 of each, and so on ... but my post processing skills are basic at the best. This image was just stretched in Gimp (2.9 because it supports 32bit per channel) - two times, first the initial stretch, and then a bit of fine tuning and afterwards just light noise reduction - technique that I've just thought of and tried for the first time: I've duplicated image in new layer, and on that new layer I applied some sort of noise reduction (not sure what it as, but it was one of G'MIC plugins - either adaptive median, or adaptive Gaussian, or maybe total variation). Then I created layer mask from that denoised layer - used the same image for layer mask, only inverted. Layers blended in normal mode - just adjust percentage to your liking.

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12 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

Can't really tell. I do know that camera is great, at least compared to other cameras that I've used (not a wide selection though: QHY5IIL, ASI186MC, ASI178MMC).

With my data reduction, I'm quite specific in that I use my own workflow (with couple of my own algorithms) with ImageJ. I follow some of my own rules - like not using bias frames, and taking very many darks/flats/flat darks as possible - in this case 256 of each, and so on ... but my post processing skills are basic at the best. This image was just stretched in Gimp (2.9 because it supports 32bit per channel) - two times, first the initial stretch, and then a bit of fine tuning and afterwards just light noise reduction - technique that I've just thought of and tried for the first time: I've duplicated image in new layer, and on that new layer I applied some sort of noise reduction (not sure what it as, but it was one of G'MIC plugins - either adaptive median, or adaptive Gaussian, or maybe total variation). Then I created layer mask from that denoised layer - used the same image for layer mask, only inverted. Layers blended in normal mode - just adjust percentage to your liking.

Unfortunately I don't speak your language! (I use Pixinsight).  I am sure there are correlations--but connecting them is WAY beyond me!

Rodd

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On 10/19/2017 at 15:59, vlaiv said:

I did not even look for it :D but idea is mind boggling, which one do you think is V1 (can't be sure if it is even there)?

image.png.1de412fc580ad6e03384c1c21ebedb1e.png

 

Think it's barely visible just below your box (or possibly obscured by the red lines), I used this image to match it up. Rotating them to the same orientation helps find it.

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5 hours ago, Knight of Clear Skies said:

Think it's barely visible just below your box (or possibly obscured by the red lines), I used this image to match it up. Rotating them to the same orientation helps find it.

Yes you are right, it is obscured by square, and indeed it looks like I caught it in the image :D

image.png.d68328fc6cef7a44c794404f1a38ba0f.png

Over last two days, I've been collecting color data, but managed to squeeze in another 2h of Lum - this might help to show it even better.

Thank you so much for pointing this out to me!

 

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