Progress on M31 Andromeda

[CraigD1986]

Here's my first astro image of the year: M31 shot on 19/08/22. Setup was as follows:

Star Adventurer 2i, Skywatcher 72ED, ASI533MC Pro, Astronomik L3 IR/UV Cut filter, ASI120MM guide camera & scope, EAF

338x Light (30 sec subs), 20 dark, 20 flat, 20 dark flat. 2 hours 49 mins total, Bottle 5.

Stacked in DSS, processed in Siril & Photoshop.

I was planning on adding some more data to this over the next couple of weeks but am really pleased with how it came out. Also attached is an image of M31 I created in February 2022, which was my first ever astro image. I'm really pleased with my progress.

Criticism welcome as I'm always looking to improve.

[ONIKKINEN]

Stars and the galaxy look like they are from different images, in my opinion you have reduced the stars far too much (with starless processing, i guess) and pretty much removed stars from M31 itself which is one of the more interesting parts of M31. Not a huge fan of the forced magenta colourcast over the image either, i think the original version is easier on the eyes even if its clearly less detailed. Judging from the visible colour noise around every magenta and blue parts of the galaxy (Ha regions, young blue-white star clusters) you have selectively saturated/adjusted just these these parts quite heavily. It can work to pop out the H-alpha regions a bit more, but it has seeped into the entire galaxy with this process and nullified whatever method of colour calibration you chose to use in SiriL.

The data looks like it would be quite nice though so that is definitely an improvement on the first one.

[Pitch Black Skies]

Well done, that is a HUGE improvement over your first attempt imo 👏 

 

...still not better than mine though 😏

[MartinB]

It's looking great.  Definitely worth continuing to add data.  It looks like you have applied some significant noise reduction to the dimmer outer regions which makes things look a bit smeary.  More data will really help sort this

[CraigD1986]

Thanks for the replies! I've had another go at the Photoshop stage of processing with that all in mind and have attached another version. I think I still personally prefer the original but am limited by my processing skills right now.

[Felias]

I like the second one better, the first one has too much star and noise reduction for my taste. Perhaps something in between the two images would be ideal? There also seems to be plenty of chromatic aberration in the stars, you could correct it with the camara raw filter in PS.

[Xilman]

1 hour ago, CraigD1986 said:

Thanks for the replies! I've had another go at the Photoshop stage of processing with that all in mind and have attached another version. I think I still personally prefer the original but am limited by my processing skills right now.

I prefer this one as it has more detail in the galaxy.  Now about to start hunting down globular clusters, supergiant stars, etc in the galaxy.

Hey! Teacher! Leave those stars alone!

[Xilman]

17 minutes ago, Xilman said:

I prefer this one as it has more detail in the galaxy.  Now about to start hunting down globular clusters, supergiant stars, etc in the galaxy.

Hey! Teacher! Leave those stars alone!

Yup.  My favourite variable star, AF And, shows up nice and bright and it even looks blue. It is a Luminous Blue Variable and at least 100k times as bright as the sun.

Not looked for other individual stars or for globular clusters but I am now sure that some will be found.

 

 

Paul

Edited August 25, 2022 by Xilman
Fix 2 examples of bad cApitalization.

[ONIKKINEN]

1 hour ago, CraigD1986 said:

Thanks for the replies! I've had another go at the Photoshop stage of processing with that all in mind and have attached another version. I think I still personally prefer the original but am limited by my processing skills right now.

This one looks quite nice 👍

[Xilman]

1 hour ago, Xilman said:

Yup.  My favourite variable star, AF And, shows up nice and bright and it even looks blue. It is a Luminous Blue Variable and at least 100k times as bright as the sun.

Not looked for other individual stars or for globular clusters but I am now sure that some will be found.

There is a good chance that you can pick up Cepheids too.  Repeat the imaging a few times over the course of a few weeks this coming season and you should be able to measure the distance to M31 for yourself. Measuring the brightness of AF And & AE And is also well within your capabilities.

A worthwhile project IMO. Remember this was bleeding edge science 100 years ago which used the world's largest telescope and 6 hour exposures. Remarkable what a century of technological progress has given to amateurs.

There's science in them thar astrophotgraphy images.