M31 (what difference a dark sky makes)

[melsky]

I've found a new dark sky site only 20 minutes drive away, so here is

my first test shot of the Andromeda galaxy taken with a 200mm lens

on my unmodded 550D on the Astrotrac, only 37.5 minutes (15 x 150 sec)

F3.5 @ 1600 iso, no filters, no darks, no flats, I just let the photoshop

raw converter take out all the hot pixels.

Mel

[tooth_dr]

Stunning mate, really really nice.

[Parus major]

Wow!

Very well done, mate!

[paul11]

Well done that looks fantastic,,,,Paul

[perrin6]

gobsmackingly gorgeous - should be on the wall of a future travel agency !

[Doug]

Well done fantastic love to see more if you have ?

Doug

Essex

[msinclairinork]

Brilliant capture! very impressive!

Michael

[red dwalf]

contender for photo of the month,

love the colours

[atharh]

Absolutely incredible! Well done!

[old_eyes]

Wow - that is stunning!

Just got to try that. As it happens I have a 200mm lens around here somewhere!

old_eyes

[The Sailor]

All I can say is I am wetting myself looking at that, well done.

Jim

[angusb1]

Beautiful detail in the dust lanes

[Photosbykev]

The impact of the overall image is stunning and then you look at the small details and it just gets better!

[Revs]

Wow, that's something else! I need to get myself an Astrotrac

[MartinB]

That's a corker, well done Mel

[Sparrow]

Alot of detail in this image.

I'd be interested to know how this image was processed ie. How were the subs stacked and what processes were applied in Adobe? Also, which 200mm lense was used?

Regards

John

[JonH]

Cracking image Mel, very well done!

[Black Knight]

Stunning, simply stunning!

[milan]

Absolutely gorgeous, one for the wall.

[yesyes]

Absolutely stunning!!

One question though. Why do the bright stars have 8 diffraction spikes? Did it come out like that or did you add them?

[melsky]

Thanks for the comments everyone, in answer to your question John

the individual frames are stacked in photoshop and opacity adjusted.

I then used multiple curve layers, selective colour layers to darken

the blacks, reduced opacity minimum filter to reduce star sizes and

a little bit of surface blur to smooth things out (this was only 15

frames @ 1600 iso). It can take a long time and a lot of fiddling to

get it right but I enjoy it, it's almost like being back in the darkroom.

Mel

lens Canon 200L

[Keiran]

That is just an amazing image.... and so little exposure too...

I think these new Canons are top dog.... I need one

Well done, youve done a brilliant job.

Keiran

[LukeSkywatcher]

WOW..............to think that small faint fuzzy i see in my scope is the same thing.

[MikeWilson]

Oh my.... amazing image quality!

[sanmatt]

Sorry to bump an old thread, but oh boy it deserves bumping.

Been looking at some of your images Mel. Absolutely stunning, each and every one!