Wednesday, September 23, 2015
Messier 31, M31, the Great Galaxy of Andromeda
Another collaboration image, this time with David Lane. He is also a master of landscape astrophotographing, please, have a look at his homepage: http://www.davelaneastrophotography.com/
Image acquisition is made by David Lane. He sent a massive amount of data to me to process and here is the first result, the Great Galaxy of Andromeda with 37 hours of exposure time.
Messier 31, M31, the Galaxy of Andromeda
Click for a large image
A deep H-alpha boosted LRGB exposure of the Galaxy of Andromeda
Large resolution detail from the image above
Click for a large image
Dust lanes of Andromeda
A starless view
Click for a large image
A vertical composition of M31
A poster format view to the M31
INFO
The Andromeda Galaxy, also known as Messier 31, M31, or NGC 224, is a spiral galaxy approximately 2.5 million light years from Earth. It is the nearest major galaxy to the Milky Way.
The Milky Way and Andromeda are expected to collide in 3.75 billion years, eventually merging to form a giant elliptical galaxy or perhaps a large disk galaxy.
At 3.4, the apparent magnitude of the Andromeda Galaxy is one of the brightest of any of the Messier objects, making it visible to the naked eye on moonless nights even when viewed from areas with moderate light pollution. It has an apparent diameter of six times as wide as the full Moon
An experimental test
This funny looking image is just stretched vertically to try to show the actual round shape of the galaxy.
It looks like a barred spiral to me.
Technical details
Data acquisition, David Lane
Image processing, J-P Metsavainio
Processing workflow
Deconvolution with a CCDStack2 Positive Constraint, 27 iterations, added at 33% weight
Color combine in PS CS3
Levels and curves in PS CS3.
Imaging optics
William Optics GT81
Camera
SBIG STL-1100 3 CCD
Exposure times
Luminance, 18h
H-alpha, 1h
Red = ~6h
Green = ~6h
Blue = ~6h
Total 37h
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4 comments:
My college graphic design professor would say that strong diagonal compositions are cheap attention getters.
My university logistic professor would say this is a space saver...
Being an amateur astronomer myself all I can say J-P is JUST STUNNING! Especially for an 81mm scope. It does give you that very wide FOV though.
Thanks,
Gary R.
Thanks Gary!
Many, if not most, of my photos are taken with a second hand camera optics.
As you know, many nebula formations has a large angular dimensions. Have a look and you'll see what I mean.
Images with a Tokina AT-X 300mm f2.8 camera lens, a cooled astro camera QHY9 and the Baader narrowband filters, http://www.astroanarchy.blogspot.fi/search/label/Tokina%20300mm%20f2.8%20images
Images taken with canon EF 200mm f1.8 camera lens, http://www.astroanarchy.blogspot.fi/search/label/Canon%20200mm%20f1.8%20images
Images are partly over lapping since I have used both optics for the same image.
J-P
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