M31 - LRGB in Pentax 150mm SLR lens (Tom Gray)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Andromeda (And) · Contains: Andromeda Galaxy · HD3431 · HD3447 · HD3765 · HD4143 · HD4174 · HD4322 · M 110 · M 31 · M 32 · NGC 205 · NGC 206 · NGC 221 · NGC 224

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M31 - LRGB in Pentax 150mm SLR lens

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M31 - LRGB in Pentax 150mm SLR lens

Two clear nights in a row, under Bortle 2 skies... a rare opportunity. Transparency was 9/10 but seeing was steadier, and I took the opportunity to add some colour frames to my M31 portrait.

The image is under-sampled and star shapes are far from perfect, but considering this was taken with unguided 60s exposures using a 1.4MPx 2/3 CCD and Pentax SLR zoom lens, I'm pretty pleased with the colour and detail achieved.

Captured in Envisage, aligned and stacked in Nebulosity (for some reason ASTAP struggled to align these frames with a slight change in image scale from the L frames), and processed in Startools 1.8 alpha, using a standard workflow with final star reduction. I hope you like it.

Original
B
Final
C
D

B

Description: A version with further star reduction to emphasise the galaxy.

Uploaded: ...

C

Description: A sharper version, with greater deconvolution has improved the detail and stars, I think.

Uploaded: ...

D

Description: I've had a crack at making this a bit sharper and dragging a little more detail out. A slightly different colour (Startools 'constancy'), the blue feels a little saturated, perhaps as a consequence of removing the slightly green cast in revision C. I have tried to retain the glow whilst providing sufficient contrast with the darker dust lanes. I'd be very interested in your feedback on this revision.

Uploaded: ...

Camera Lens Astrophotography
Low-Cost Astrophotography
UK Astro-Imaging
Altair Astro 183 M/C Hypercams

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	4981576
PixInsight job	ORP6N90ZKT39SKI6BGSFHRNJ403A2JSS
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	00h42m32s.90
RA (top/left)	00h48m59s.28
RA (top/right)	00h48m45s.54
RA (bottom/right)	00h35m47s.54
RA (bottom/left)	00h36m38s.58

Dec (center)	+41°23′06″.10
Dec (top/left)	+39°49′18″.4
Dec (top/right)	+43°00′09″.9
Dec (bottom/right)	+42°55′30″.7
Dec (bottom/left)	+39°44′42″.9

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M31 - LRGB in Pentax 150mm SLR lens

M31 - LRGB in Pentax 150mm SLR lens

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M31 - LRGB in Pentax 150mm SLR lens

M31 - LRGB in Pentax 150mm SLR lens

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