My first attempt to image M31.

[Felias]

I can't believe that we had a window of good weather last night! 😱 I took about 3 hours of Andromeda, the first time I seriously try to image the galaxy (I did a couple of shots to test the telescope months ago, but just barely captured it). This is a stack of 340 x 30 second shots, plus darks, flats and bias. WO Z61 on a star adventurer, no guiding. Canon 77D. Processed in DSS and PS.

Anyway, just my first proper processing of Andromeda, I'll keep trying and see what I can improve. Denoising, definitely. Maybe star reduction? Suggestions welcome.

 

 

Edited September 3, 2021 by Felias

[happy-kat]

I'd say that was a win, super first image. You could do dark flats as well these I find help with noise.

Edited September 3, 2021 by happy-kat

[Felias]

1 hour ago, happy-kat said:

I'd say that was a win, super first image. You could do dark flats as well these I find help with noise.

Thanks, I'll try that next time!

[AKB]

Good grief, this is a very good first image.  I would be very pleased with that. 
 

A few suggestions:

• It’s black clipped, so maybe some of the weakest signal has been lost.
• It has a greenish tinge, to me.   Easily removed.
• Colour may be a bit off, even after green is removes.  Some colour calibration and saturation here?

But really, really good, to my eyes.

Tony

Edited September 3, 2021 by AKB

[Felias]

20 minutes ago, AKB said:

Good grief, this is a very good first image.  I would be very pleased with that. 
 

A few suggestions:

• It’s black clipped, so maybe some of the weakest signal has been lost.
• It has a greenish tinge, to me.   Easily removed.
• Colour may be a bit off, even after green is removes.  Some colour calibration and saturation here?

But really, really good, to my eyes.

Tony

Thank you! And yes, well spotted, I had trouble getting rid of the green background after the colour calibration. Any suggestions on how to do this in PS?

I tampered a bit with the saturation after I calibrated the colours. When added to my struggles with the green, the resulting colour may not be the most realistic. 🤔

[tomato]

That’s a fine M31 for a first go. There is a plug in for PS called “Hasta La Vista Green” or HLVG for short, here is the link:

http://www.deepskycolors.com/archivo/2010/04/26/hasta-La-Vista-Green.html

I have to confess I have never used it but a lot of folks on here recommend it.

Edited September 3, 2021 by tomato
Typo corrected

[Felias]

16 hours ago, tomato said:

That’s a fine M31 for a first go. There is a plug in for PS called “Hasta La Vista Green” or HLVG for short, here is the link:

http://www.deepskycolors.com/archivo/2010/04/26/hasta-La-Vista-Green.html

I have to confess I have never used it but a lot of folks on here recommend it.

Thank you, I have applied the green correction, now it looks like this:

I haven't had time to go through the entire processing again, so I did it as a last step. At which point would it be best to apply the filter? After colour balancing I assume?

[tomato]

I think it has improved it, I would apply the green removal tool at the same point in the workflow but perhaps some experienced PS users will comment.

The area around the central core has a pinkish tone on my screen which perhaps  could be moved towards the yellow, but this is a really good M31,  it took me several attempts before I was close to something as good as this.

[Felias]

1 hour ago, tomato said:

I think it has improved it, I would apply the green removal tool at the same point in the workflow but perhaps some experienced PS users will comment.

The area around the central core has a pinkish tone on my screen which perhaps  could be moved towards the yellow, but this is a really good M31,  it took me several attempts before I was close to something as good as this.

Thank you, the plug in definitely worked. The pinkish came out when I increased the contrast to see the dust lanes (a bit of dehazing too), I'll see if I can play a bit with that. It's very mild on my computer, but I've never been able to perfectly calibrate the reds on this screen anyway.