Andromeda Galaxy / 31.08.2022

[WilliamAstro]

Spent the night photographing our cosmic neighbour, Andromeda. It was a tricky but triumphant night as clouds kept passing by but at 22:00-00:00 the sky was clear enough for me to photograph the galaxy. It was tedious finding it but eventually I pulled through, This is my first successful attempt at imaging a DSO. In the future I will invest more money for a small OTA like the Evostar 72-ED to further my DS astrophotography.

Equipment used:

Skywatcher Star-Adventurer 2i

Canon 600D (Unmodded)

Canon EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 III

 

Software used:

DeepSkyStacker

Photoshop 2022

 

20 x 112 light frames used in addition to darks, flats, and dark flats.

Over 30 minute total exposure.

 

Cheers and clear skies

 

William

 

[AstroMuni]

19 hours ago, WilliamAstro said:

This is my first successful attempt at imaging a DSO

Thats a great attempt! I think there is a lot more data than whats visible in this at the moment. Feel free to post your stacked raw image here and folk will tell you the art of the possible. 🙂 And that will tell you where to focus - better equipment or mastering the processing software

Edited September 1, 2022 by AstroMuni

[WilliamAstro]

Reprocess, the galaxy is just sharper in one of the images.

Edited September 2, 2022 by WilliamAstro

[WilliamAstro]

19 hours ago, AstroMuni said:

Thats a great attempt! I think there is a lot more data than whats visible in this at the moment. Feel free to post your stacked raw image here and folk will tell you the art of the possible. 🙂 And that will tell you where to focus - better equipment or mastering the processing software

Check out my next process I did, it is definitely better than what I did last time.

[AstroMuni]

20 minutes ago, WilliamAstro said:

Check out my next process I did, it is definitely better than what I did last time.

Wow. Thats a great improvement. Love it.

[assouptro]

That’s epic for your first dso! 
I’m too embarrassed to post mine!! 
 

Well done! Watch out though, it’s really addictive and expensive!! 😎

Thanks for sharing 

Bryan 

[tomato]

That's a fine first go at M31. Although it is a popular first time DSO to image (like M42) I find it a tricky one to process when you have to balance the bright core with the fainter outer regions. Although the background is nicer on the later versions, I think  some of the fainter outer region detail has been lost. Have a look at the Left hand side of the histogram peak to see if you have any space before the peak starts to appear.

[AstroNebulee]

Very nice for your first dso attempt and a good process too👍. 

I wouldn't worry about using dark frames with the 600D just do bias instead and use the time saved to take more light frames. 

As astromuni said if you want to post your stacked file, I reckon there's more to pull out of the data. 

Lee

[Ratlet]

14 minutes ago, AstroNebulee said:

Very nice for your first dso attempt and a good process too👍. 

I wouldn't worry about using dark frames with the 600D just do bias instead and use the time saved to take more light frames. 

As astromuni said if you want to post your stacked file, I reckon there's more to pull out of the data. 

Lee

I think you can get away with using a constant bias with the older canon DSLR.  2048 I think.

In siril, instead of putting an address to the bias file, just type in

=2048

[WilliamAstro]

Autosave003.tif

Raw unprocessed stacked data

[AstroNebulee]

Here's my effort on your data, processed in Siril, Starnet++2 and photoshop cs4 . I couldn't really squeeze much more out of it but I really enjoyed processing it. Keep gathering the data on it when you can and will definitely help you, maybe even go for some long exposures too to really bring out those dust lanes.  You have made such great progress and going in the right direction

Ps I like to flip the image to this orientation as it gives it a more 3 dimensional feel.

 

Lee

 

 

Edited September 3, 2022 by AstroNebulee
Alteration

[WilliamAstro]

On 03/09/2022 at 15:42, AstroNebulee said:

Here's my effort on your data, processed in Siril, Starnet++2 and photoshop cs4 . I couldn't really squeeze much more out of it but I really enjoyed processing it. Keep gathering the data on it when you can and will definitely help you, maybe even go for some long exposures too to really bring out those dust lanes.  You have made such great progress and going in the right direction

Ps I like to flip the image to this orientation as it gives it a more 3 dimensional feel.

 

Lee

 

 

It will get better, I will have an opportunity to take more exposures like 4 hours (depends if the camera battery is capable of that).

[AstroNebulee]

4 minutes ago, WilliamAstro said:

It will get better, I will have an opportunity to take more exposures like 4 hours (depends if the camera battery is capable of that).

You are doing great, even 2 hours will be a huge difference. 

You can get mains powered dummy batteries for your dslr. I used to use one on my 600D. 

Lee 

[WilliamAstro]

1 minute ago, AstroNebulee said:

You are doing great, even 2 hours will be a huge difference. 

You can get mains powered dummy batteries for your dslr. I used to use one on my 600D. 

Lee 

are there any of these on amazon? you dont mind if you could share me links of these? Cheers

[AstroNebulee]

1 minute ago, WilliamAstro said:

are there any of these on amazon? you dont mind if you could share me links of these? Cheers

This is the one I have and used to use before I got my zwo asi294mc pro 

F1TP ACK-E8 AC Power Adapter and LP-E8 DR-E8 Dummy Battery Coupler Kit Replacement for Canon EOS Rebel T5i T4i T3i T2i Kiss X7 X6 X5 X4 700D 650D 600D 550D Cameras https://amzn.eu/d/5r4DNzm

Lee

[Ratlet]

I use a usb powered dummy battery.  Either powered off the pc when using Nina or off a small power bank (10000mah power pack should provide 9*longer battery compared to stock)

[Paul M]

I've not yet imaged M31. Mostly because I don't have a scope or lense that's well suited to it. But maybe I'm afraid of it too!

I took the oportunity of playing with your data. Just dragged it through Photoshop in my usual unrepeatable way. Stretch, curves, Astronomy Tools plug-in and AstroFlat pro plug-in. Your data is quite robust. I really hammered it to try and get more of the faint outer arm detail to show. I usually kill an image first but I quite like how your's turned out.

[Felias]

Really good for the first attempt, and only 30 min. Here's my processing with Siril (very useful for the photometric colour calibration) and Photoshop. There's plenty of noise and banding, so I did not push it much, as I didn't want to clip the background. I didn't reduce the stars with Starnet to save time, but it could help in making the galaxy pop. You just need to gather more data, but you're definitely on track!

[AstroMuni]

20 hours ago, WilliamAstro said:

It will get better, I will have an opportunity to take more exposures like 4 hours (depends if the camera battery is capable of that).

You could collect 2hrs (or whatever is the battery capacity) at a time and stack the stacks to get the same result. You just need to be mindful to retain as close as possible to the original orientation to minimise rotational stacking issues.

[WilliamAstro]

4 hours ago, AstroMuni said:

You could collect 2hrs (or whatever is the battery capacity) at a time and stack the stacks to get the same result. You just need to be mindful to retain as close as possible to the original orientation to minimise rotational stacking issues.

my mount is equatorial so there wont be too much difference, plus i could get the dummy battery so i wont worry about losing battery life

[WilliamAstro]

On 02/09/2022 at 16:18, tomato said:

That's a fine first go at M31. Although it is a popular first time DSO to image (like M42) I find it a tricky one to process when you have to balance the bright core with the fainter outer regions. Although the background is nicer on the later versions, I think  some of the fainter outer region detail has been lost. Have a look at the Left hand side of the histogram peak to see if you have any space before the peak starts to appear.

i think it is best to leave the fainter parts out as if i overexpose the histogram, it will induce so much noise. it will be best when it is at a longer time and then the fainter areas will become more apparent and with less noise also would learn to use dithering and in addition to a guidescope

[AstroMuni]

14 hours ago, WilliamAstro said:

my mount is equatorial so there wont be too much difference, plus i could get the dummy battery so i wont worry about losing battery life

As I dont have a dome, I dismantle and reattach for every imaging session and notice that my camera orientation sometimes alters a bit (even though I leave the camera attached to scope). 😞

Good luck and look forward to seeing more DSO images from you now.

[WilliamAstro]

On 06/09/2022 at 21:33, Paul M said:

I've not yet imaged M31. Mostly because I don't have a scope or lense that's well suited to it. But maybe I'm afraid of it too!

I took the oportunity of playing with your data. Just dragged it through Photoshop in my usual unrepeatable way. Stretch, curves, Astronomy Tools plug-in and AstroFlat pro plug-in. Your data is quite robust. I really hammered it to try and get more of the faint outer arm detail to show. I usually kill an image first but I quite like how your's turned out.

This process looks like a picture of it from an old book. In a good way! :)

[Paul M]

17 minutes ago, WilliamAstro said:

This process looks like a picture of it from an old book. In a good way!

Ah! That'll be the sepia stars!🤣

It could catch on...