This is my second attempt to get a good shot of the Andromeda Galaxy. The
first was with a dslr zoom lens at around 200mm with a light pollution filter, a guide camera hooked up to my laptop, and manual control of a remote shutter with a stopwatch. This time around I've upgraded to a 360mm focal length scope and an ASIAIR Pro to handle the guiding and shutter.
While most of the process was easier and produced higher quality results than before, there were a few hiccups. If you notice a dark nebulous region near M110, it's not a new black hole, it's some sort of tiny bug that was walking across the image sensor. I tried unsuccessfully to remove it from the camera during the session, but eventually gave up. I was able to mostly remove it in post processing by reducing the sigma clipping threshold on the negative side. More importantly, I was only able to use 45 of 70 frames due to camera motion. Tripod/mount is next up on my upgrade list.
Overall very happy with the results, but still plenty of room to improve and learn.
Comments