New M31 image

[russ]

Hi all,

As i mentioned on another thread, i managed to get out last night. Not a brilliant night, 5/10 at best. Loads of mist and light pollution. What really annoys is the previous night (Saturday) was stunning but i went to bed on Metcheck's say so. They declared that Saturday would be 99% cloud and light rain. Hmm, woke up at 2.30am to find the sky still crystal clear. Nevermind i thought, Metcheck say Sunday is going to be stunning.

Sunday arrives and sure enough the skies look real nice at 10.30 pm. Get the scope setup, go indoors read Sky at Night mag, plan some objects to look at and perhaps image. Then come back out at 11.30. Great, what the hell is that!!!!! Wall to wall mist and fog. 0% cloud Metcheck said :x :x :x :x :x :x

I HATE METCHECK :violent1:

Anyway the skies cleared a bit by 12.30, not back to their 10.30 state but at least the dense mist/fog had gone.

Screwed up plan of action. Could only see the star Vega in Lyra, so i knew things were pretty bad. Decided M31 would be the only worthwhile thing looking at before packing up.

In the end i imaged M31 for an hour, only got 9 useable images though and then turned my attention to Mars. Also saw the most fantastic meteor streak through Cygnus, left a nice vapour trail too.

So here we have it, one M31 image. The result of 9 images combined. 1 x 2min, 2 x 1.5min, 4 x 1min, 2 x 50secs. All at 1600iso with the 300D, Explorer 200 on the EQ6 unguided and a Baader Skyglow filter. I'm very pleased all things considered.

One final note-

I HATE TELESCOPE HOUSE AND THEIR CRAPPY 2" CAMERA ADAPTER :x

Russ

[russ]

Two things are annoying about the image above:

1/ Why didn't i bother to centre it? Thinking back i decided i couldn't be bothered because of the Rubbish sky. Didn't expect to get anything worthwhile.

2/ Surely there must be another 2" nosepiece adapter that works with the 8" Newt? The BCF jobby seriously Rubbish. Everytime i use the blumming thing i get one half of the image in focus, the other half not. I really want to find a replacement so i can take a hammer to the BCF one.

Russ

[Ant]

I hate the crappy adapter as well... the worst bit of kit that I have! Thats a nice M31 though Russ - way better than mine... Several dust lanes and a plane trail - you haven't even burnt out the core...

Lovely... Did you say theat you had a comparison between with and without the LP filter?

Ant

[Ant]

Looks pretty much in focus across the whole field there Russ?

[OXO]

Thats a lovely shot of M31 far beyond anything i have ever got of it! amazing details the dust lanes are fantastic and as Ant say you managed not to overexpose the Core :)

Sounds like you had a pretty good night apart from your hassles with the adapter..

Great image!

James

[russ]

Hi Ant,

I only got 9 useable images because 30mins into the imaging I realised one half the image was out of focus. At that point I was just going to lob the adapter but that'll have to wait until I get a replacement.

Here the comparison of the unfiltered and filtered. Both 40secs @1600iso.

The filter definitely reduces the detail captured but vastly improves the background sky. Also note the Baader has very natural colour reproduction, in fact the colour doesn't need correcting. The Baader's trump card though is it's contrast boost on the Planets. Really makes a difference.

Russ

[OXO]

Blimey that filter does that Job is supposed to doesnt it Russ quite shocked :shock:

James

[russ]

One thing i did notice when processing, if i really pushed the image the detail in the outer parts increased ten fold. But i haven't got the skill to boost the detail there but keep the core from burning out.

Russ

[Grant]

Could you not process the image to boost the outer detail, then open the original image and cut out the core section and post it into the newly processed image, this way you get the outer detail with the original high quality core....

[OXO]

This is my attempt with your image russ:)

[russ]

Thanks James....excellent!

Grant...yep that's exactly what i need to do. Tried a couple of times but my attempts are Rubbish to say the least. I seem to have trouble blending the two layers back together without having a distinct difference between the core and outer.

These are my newer attempts at processing:

First overprocessed jobby:

And my best processed jobby:

Russ

[Grant]

That's an awesome looking image you've got there Russ, nice work!

[OXO]

Nice one Russ! :sunny:

[Ant]

I think - and don't get me wrong here, I haven't a clue how to actually do it - it's something to do with selecting the area to process (leaving the core unprocessed, or less processed) also using Layers as well. Allthis with a feather edge...

Told you I know nothing I'm spanish you know...

Lovely image though Russ. Nice comparison - it's a hard one to call really... Signal vs LP Hmmmmm.

Ant