M31 Andromeda Galaxy

[Mal22]

This is my attempt at the Andromeda Galaxy in Bortle 6 skies in the UK. This is 16 hrs of data collected from 5 nights over the last 3 months in between long stretches of cloudy nights...

 

I've been doing AP for about 9 months now and still learning it all, and finding my way around PixInsight, so constructive feedback is very welcome!

 

341 lights x 180 secs

50 flats and 50 dark flats for each of the 5 nights

50 x dark frames180 secs -20degrees

Zenithstar 73

ASI294MC

EQ5 Mount

ASIAir

Stacked in DSS and processed in PixInsight

 

[glafnazur]

I'm no expert but that looks really good to me.

[Xilman]

Looks nice.  You are picking up stars down to at least 17th magnitude because AE And (a supergiant in the galaxy) is readily visible. Several globular clusters show up nicely too.

[Mal22]

Thanks @Xilman

Where is AE And in the image? I tried to Google it but nothing helpful came up 😊 

[peter shah]

Thats a super rendition of Andromeda....my monitor is showing a slight green bias in the background but that just might be the difference in screen calibration....

[Xilman]

3 hours ago, Mal22 said:

Thanks @Xilman

Where is AE And in the image? I tried to Google it but nothing helpful came up 😊 

Many thousands of variable star charts are available from AAVSO.  https://app.aavso.org/vsp is an extremely valuable resource.

Below is a snip from your image, doubled in scale and with AE And marked in red. You should be able to find it as the elongated pattern of bright stars above M32 is  easily recognizable. AE And is also easy to find, once you know where it is located, because of the Mercedes-badge asterism of four stars.

I encourage imagers to observe variable stars in M31 and M33, record their measurements and submit them to the BAA or AAVSO.

As a bonus I have marked the globular cluster Bol 352 in yellow.

 

 

 

Edited August 24, 2023 by Xilman
Add globular cluster Bol 352.

[Mal22]

8 hours ago, Xilman said:

Many thousands of variable star charts are available from AAVSO.  https://app.aavso.org/vsp is an extremely valuable resource.

Below is a snip from your image, doubled in scale and with AE And marked in red. You should be able to find it as the elongated pattern of bright stars above M32 is  easily recognizable. AE And is also easy to find, once you know where it is located, because of the Mercedes-badge asterism of four stars.

I encourage imagers to observe variable stars in M31 and M33, record their measurements and submit them to the BAA or AAVSO.

As a bonus I have marked the globular cluster Bol 352 in yellow.

 

 

 

Thank you for such a detailed and helpful response! I’m very curious about what’s in my images, and finding out what i’m looking at but didn’t realise I was looking at. It’s all so fascinating! I’d actually reduced stars a fair bit in the processing  so AE And was more visible in the original data. 

[Xilman]

33 minutes ago, Mal22 said:

Thank you for such a detailed and helpful response! I’m very curious about what’s in my images, and finding out what i’m looking at but didn’t realise I was looking at. It’s all so fascinating! I’d actually reduced stars a fair bit in the processing  so AE And was more visible in the original data. 

I hope you have kept the original data. (If you have, please post it here.) One never knows what can be found in subsequent re-analysis.  For instance, I can provide data on the positions and magnitudes of all known and candidate globular clusters in M31. There well be so far unrecognized variable stars in your image, for instance.

You, and others, may wish to examine your image in much greater detail than saying "Wow! That looks pretty!"

Now go look for AF And, another variable on my observing program. It is much brighter than AE these days.

Edited August 24, 2023 by Xilman

[Sunshine]

That’s a great M31!