M31 - the Great Andromeda Galaxy (Tom Gray)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Andromeda (And) · Contains: Andromeda Galaxy · M 31 · NGC 224

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M31 - the Great Andromeda Galaxy

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M31 - the Great Andromeda Galaxy

This is my first serious attempt at the great Andromeda Galaxy, taken just as dawn was making her presence felt in the East, after the moon had set. I am amazed by how much detail can be captured in a short exposure of just 30 minutes. I had set up my scope for planetary imaging, with four major planets visible through the night; consequently I had only performed a rough polar alignment. This image comprises just 60 x 30s exposures with no guiding. I used Envisage to track and capture the composite image.

Startools has worked its magic again, effortlessly extracting the detail in the core and central dust lanes. I am amazed by what a little HDR brightening and (too much) deconvolution can do in such a short exposure. I took this with my DSI III pro mono camera and look forward to adding colour frames in due course. This is a very encouraging start, and I will use longer exposure as the nights start to draw in. Needless to say my FOV will always be limited in an 8" SCT, and there are clear signs of vignetting at the edges with my f3.3 focal reducer; I'll try my DSI II OSC and zoom lens for a full field.

Fortunately we are just at the start of the winter constellations season again...

Altair Astro 183 M/C Hypercams
UK Astro-Imaging
Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope (SCT) Imagers

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	3820891
PixInsight job	L4PA35PK92ADHOL2GGZ2G3O77F60YA54
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	00h42m46s.16
RA (top/left)	00h44m19s.58
RA (top/right)	00h40m54s.91
RA (bottom/right)	00h41m11s.98
RA (bottom/left)	00h44m38s.59

Dec (center)	+41°14′56″.1
Dec (top/left)	+40°58′21″.3
Dec (top/right)	+41°03′03″.2
Dec (bottom/right)	+41°31′21″.0
Dec (bottom/left)	+41°26′39″.0

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M31 - the Great Andromeda Galaxy

M31 - the Great Andromeda Galaxy

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M31 - the Great Andromeda Galaxy

M31 - the Great Andromeda Galaxy

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