M31 and M39 from last night

[Will Gater]

Hello :wave: ,

I managed to image from a dark sky site last night, just before the Moon really started to spoil things , so I grabbed two shots of M31 (Andromeda) and M39, a lovely open cluster in Cygnus. The M31 shot is a total of 32 mins at ISO 1600; processed in Deep Sky Stacker, Photoshop Elements and GIMP. This is my second stab at M31. I'd like to get about two hours on this without the Moon and away from LP as I seem to have lost a bit of the colour and there's some noise and odd shaped stars still in there. Still, it's nice to be out imaging!

All the best,

Will

[CELESCOPE]

Nice Will . yes the old Moon does not help u guys with colour camera,s for sure . but they are nice images Will and can only improve with good coditions

Rog

[MikeD]

Result Will, dust lanes showing well.

Moonless skies and lots of data will help no end.

Mike.

[Will Gater]

Thanks Mike and Rog, yep Mike I can hear a dark sky site on Dartmoor calling for me to pay it a visit!

[NickH]

Great stuff Will, and chuffed that your new HEQ5 is delivering so well!

[thing]

Great shots Will, liked the open particularly. Did you guide or was it 30x1minute subs or thereabouts. I should be getting an HEQ5 tomorrow so am pretty excited if that is unguided.

[Psychobilly]

Nice shots will.

I haven't taken the scope to a dark sky since the pier and obs have been setup and now I have taken the estate off the road looks like i'm stuck in there for a while ... the sacrifices we have to make

Billy...

[Will Gater]

Thanks Peter/Dave,

Dave, these were subs of 100s unguided, which I was really chuffed with. I had a good polar alignment and at full resolution you can see that the stars are not perfectly circular in about 1/3 of the subs. If I had kept it to 60s subs there would have been no really noticeable trailing. I shouldn't have gone to ISO 1600 as the more I look at it the more crunchy and noisy it looks - hopefully I'll get out and have another go.

[steppenwolf]

Well taken, Will - despite the Moon you have some good detail but the Moonglow does take its toll on one shot colour CCDs. Just great to be out there again isn't it?

[MartinB]

With a few more subs on M31 you could have a belter. The detail is already coming through well and the set up frames it really nicely