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Andromeda Galaxy with Hyperstar from Bortle 7 - City astrophotography challenge, Mike

Andromeda Galaxy with Hyperstar from Bortle 7 - City astrophotography challenge

Link: http://www.theinvisibleuniverse.com/Gallery_DeepSky/index.php
Link to TIFF/FITS: http://www.theinvisibleuniverse.com/Gallery_DeepSky/images/DeepSky_2022/M31_And_C11Hyper%20f1.9+ASI6200MM+GM2000QCI_HaLRGB_web_fullres_noframe_nologo.jpg
Andromeda Galaxy with Hyperstar from Bortle 7 - City astrophotography challenge, Mike

Andromeda Galaxy with Hyperstar from Bortle 7 - City astrophotography challenge

Link: http://www.theinvisibleuniverse.com/Gallery_DeepSky/index.php
Link to TIFF/FITS: http://www.theinvisibleuniverse.com/Gallery_DeepSky/images/DeepSky_2022/M31_And_C11Hyper%20f1.9+ASI6200MM+GM2000QCI_HaLRGB_web_fullres_noframe_nologo.jpg

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Description

The Large Andromeda Galaxy, Messier 31. A total of 23.5 hours with a Celestron C11 Hyperstar at f1.9 from a light polluted Bortle 7 sky here in the German Ruhrgebiet, one of the largest metropolitan areas in Europe.
Here in my backyard observatory, neither the Milky Way nor Messier M31 are visible to the naked eye. Only the brightest stars are visible at all.

I have set myself the challenge of getting as much out of my light-polluted sky as possible. Almost anyone can take reasonable astrophotos from dark locations these days. But under a very light polluted sky it is much more difficult.

To photograph a broadband target like M31 with strong sky brightening, you have to collect a lot of exposure time. A fast aperture ratio helps to reduce the noise caused by the sky background so that you can bring out the object itself. Thus, the fast focal ratio of the Hyperstar helps a lot.

I have to admit that the star shapes of the Hyperstar are pretty crappy, especially at the edges of the full frame image of the ASI6200MM. This image is a vertical crop of the horizontal full frame of the ASI6200MM, as I had to crop out the edges. In general, the Hyperstar for the C11 has a design limit on star size of 12 microns. So it is not diffraction limited and much larger than the pixel size of the ASI6200MM.

Due to the large mirror flop of the C11, an autoguider does not work well and causes star trailing. That's where my new mount, the 10micron GM3000HPS, comes in handy. I had the mount create a 50-star model through the C11 Hyperstar using the 10micron tools in N.I.N.A.. The mount's predictive guiding now has improved guiding performance, so I am able to make 3min exposures with no visible elongation of stars.

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Andromeda Galaxy with Hyperstar from Bortle 7 - City astrophotography challenge, Mike
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