M31 mosaic

[Erik Young]

Here's my fist real attempt at a mosaic, Captured it this weekend with ACP (of course). Just luminance so far. I plan to collect Ha and RGB as well.

9 panels, each composed of 4 5 minute subs.

Reduced in Maxim processed with PixInsight.

http://lambda-conspiracy.net/pictures/astrophotography/

-esy

[Eric Dose]

Let me be the lucky first to say: Very nice, very nice indeed.

I too am starting with monochrome only (Luminance & occasionally H-alpha). Struck me as a sane, left-brain + right-brain way to get all the mechanical stuff ready and yet have many nice pix to show for progress.

[Erik Young]

Thanks very much.

I actually took luminance first as I wanted a framework for aligning, and I wasn't sure if my mosaic coordinates were right. I tried a couple times before until I realized that TheSky's reported PA was 270 degrees off from my plate-solved PA, so I ended up changing all the coordinates in the plan to match the mosaic in TheSky. I actually wasted a ton of time doing one pass over the whole mosaic at a time. I probably could have captured more data had I updated my plan after the first run... oh well, I guess next time I'll optimize the run a bit more...

-esy

[Jim McMillan]

Hi Erik,

Impressive result! I'm surprised at the depth of the image with only 20 minutes exposure. (Anything less than 4 hrs looks really thin for my setup.) You've either got 1) a really big scope, 2) really dark skys, a really sensitive camera, or plenty of skill!

Very nice!

Jim

[Erik Young]

Thanks Jim,

Telescope is an f/7 111 mm triplet (Astro Technologies). Skies are my usual: pretty directly underneath the streetlamp in front of my house ! The camera is very good: an FLI Microline 8300.

-esy

[pedrocanel]

Impressive... add more time and colour and it go from impressive to absolutely amazing! Great job there...