November 16, 2018: Another clear night, another attempt at M31

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Despite moonlight, I had another go at M31. Captured 153 subs of 60s (still haven't sorted out my guiding properly), using my APM 80mm F/6 triplet, with TRF-2008 0.8x reducer, and modded Canon EOS 550D, this time on my Great Polaris mount. It does seem to track more stably than the EQ3-2 (no real surprise there).  I took new flats and darks to build a new bad pixel map as well, and stacked the data in Astro Pixel Processor. It discarded a few subs, but the total exposure of 8762 s yielded a much better result than last weeks 3600 s. Conditions were a lot less hazy too, which helped. Still fighting with curves to get colour balance right, but quite some detail is coming through

Version one, galaxy a bit too red, I feel

Version two, background too blue on this screen

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Version three

Still needs more data

 

[ollypenrice]

It will be very hard to find much contrast with the moon around. However, the system will work well on this target, clearly.

Olly

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

12 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

It will be very hard to find much contrast with the moon around. However, the system will work well on this target, clearly.

Olly

There was just over half a moon, fairly low in the sky, with M31 overhead. The moon set after the first hour of exposures. LP from the city affected the view more. I continue to be surprised what can be done from my suburban garden

[Rodd]

Looks good to me.  Very natural

Rodd