M31 from Colle dell'Agnello

[GuLinux]

This august I was able to go with our "astronomical gang" to our usual appointment at Colle dell'Agnello in Italy, very close to France border.

The place is very dark, but the weather can often be a problem. Sometimes too windy, clouds covering the sky pretty quickly, sometimes even surrounding us (massive humidity, lens and mirrors getting wet).

During one of these nights I tried to get NGC7000, only to get inside a cloud right 5 minutes after finishing setting up everything and starting exposures.

It lasted a while, and I didn't have much time left, so I decided to get a quick shot at an old classic, M31.

Here's the result:

(full technical card on Astrobin: https://www.astrobin.com/361079/?nc=user )

Roughly 2 hours of exposure (discarding a good portion of frames, so I stacked slightly more than 1 hour).

Setup:

• ASI1600mm (non cool)
• TS Photoline 60mm F/5.5 (with reducer, fl=260mm)
• Star Adventurer
• Processed using Pixinsight

I'm not 100% happy about both the shooting and the processing, stars don't look *very* good when zooming in, but I quite like the fact that the core is not saturated, and some nice details can be spotted too.

 

Bonus:

A timelapse of our days (and nights) at the shelter: