How to take a really sharp and nice picture of Andromeda with these specifications

[Nox]

How would I go about taking a sharp and good picture of Andromeda with a Nexstar 4SE and Canon EOS 5D mark 3 and Clear skies. I currently have suitable attatchments as well, however am struggling to take a sharp image. What settings would be good as well for the camera, in terms of exposure time, iso, etc?

Additionally, does anyone know of any useful tools to accurately get my longitude and latitude and why my alignment with sky align may be slightly off sometimes even though i follow the steps?

Edited July 8, 2020 by Nox

[PeterCPC]

Not an ideal scope for DSO imaging. I suggest that you try a bit of "lucky imaging" where you take lots of short exposures to stack. ISO I would suggest 800 and try 30 secs exposures and see if there is trailing. There are various web sites where you can obtain your co-ordinates.

Peter

[Waddensky]

40 minutes ago, Nox said:

Additionally, does anyone know of any useful tools to accurately get my longitude and latitude

If you click your location in the Google Maps web interface, a pop up shows the coordinates for that point. There are also many apps that use your phone's GPS to show your location.  Keep an eye on the accuracy though, it takes some time for the GPS sensor to accurately determine your location.

[Aramcheck]

With the Canon 5D MkIII it looks like you could get away with ISO1600 (or possibly 3200), judging by the dynamic range curve: http://dslr-astrophotography.com/iso-values-canon-cameras/

You could also try controlling the camera with Astro Photography Tool (APT) in case you're not getting good focus. (If you can, use a Bahtinov mask)

As @PeterCPC says, the mount is not well suited for DSO imaging, so you'll have to experiment to see how long you can make exposures with acceptable star trailing.  I don't think anything can be done about field rotation though.

Apart from the additional read noise & processing time, you should be able to reduce the individual exposure time & compensate by taking more subs.

Cheers
Ivor

[Cosmic Geoff]

Check the field of view you are getting with this telescope and camera. Andromeda is very large - up to three degrees - and the field of view of this telescope is relatively small.  http://astronomy.tools/calculators/field_of_view/

The lat/long is not that critical, as evidenced by the 'nearest city' option in the firmware.  There are lots of websites and apps that will give you more accurate figures.

The GoTo with these mounts in practice does not always place objects dead centre.  For greater accuracy, you can use alignment stars nearer the object of interest, or use the "Precise GoTo" option in the handset menu.

[Stu]

You will only get a portion of M31 is with the 4SE and your camera due to the long focal length.

[happy-kat]

You might like to take a look at this thread

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/228101-the-no-eq-dso-challenge