M31 | Finally! (Kevin Morefield)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Andromeda (And) · Contains: 32 And · Andromeda Galaxy · HD3431 · HD3447 · HD3741 · HD3765 · HD3827 · HD3969 · HD4143 · HD4174 · HD4322 · HD4501 · HD4669 · M 110 · M 31 · M 32 · NGC 205 · NGC 206 · NGC 221 · NGC 224 · The star 32 And

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M31 | Finally!

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M31 | Finally!

Finally getting my M31 image was my goal for this season. I only get so many nights to travel to a dark site with the scope and I dedicated all of them to M31. The LRGB data came from Bortle 2 Goldendale Washington and the Ha came from my Bortle 7 backyard. This limited my ability to show the background Ha but maybe next year for that!

The Ha was added judiciously and with the intent to make it look realistic. I cleaned out the continuum and added the remainder to the Luminance, Red and a little bit to the Blue. I added some to the Blue to replicate the Magenta color of the H2 emissions that comes from the Hbeta.

The FOV of the FSQ and full frame QHY600 was enough to show the extended H2 areas that are well beyond the main arms. We also see some glows from dust and possibly stars curving up from the left side and down on the right side.

I was asked several times if I shot shorter subs for the core. I found that with the large well depth of the QHY600, along wiht the Extended Full Well mode and gain 25, 300 second Luminance subs did not saturate the core. That makes things much easier!

It's good to get the M31 monkey off my back after many years of dead end attempts!

QHY Users Group
Pacific Northwest Astrophotographers
Takahashi Refractors

Please note: The following tables are updated every 24 hours.

Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
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Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
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Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
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This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
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Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	6386411
PixInsight job	KYI2PVHV9LBPT2LBR0E7ZOADPOX6Z9WJ
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	00h42m37s.62
RA (top/left)	00h48m58s.70
RA (top/right)	00h49m07s.65
RA (bottom/right)	00h35m54s.69
RA (bottom/left)	00h36m28s.62

Dec (center)	+41°17′00″.4
Dec (top/left)	+39°27′40″.9
Dec (top/right)	+43°06′44″.4
Dec (bottom/right)	+43°05′13″.8
Dec (bottom/left)	+39°26′11″.0

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M31 | Finally!

M31 | Finally!

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