Andromeda Galaxy

JimFox

Moderator
Staff member
This is the Andromeda Galaxy M31. It's one of the ones I took longer images of last week to get more detail in them at Joshua Tree which is a Bortle 3 sky (Pretty Dark).

It's a rushed editing job with my mom in the hospital, but I wanted to get a go at this one since I didn't like my earlier attempt from weeks prior that I didn't post. Learning to pull details from Galaxies seems to be a bit different then Nebulas, and so it's a work in progress as I continue to learn.

38 - 3min exp at ISO 800
16 - Dark Frames
10 - Bias Frames
SkyGuider Pro - Tracking Mount
Nikon D850 with Tamron 150-600mm at 300mm

I am not totally happy with this, but I am happy with it if that makes sense. I hope to improve upon this in the future.

All comments are welcome,

Jim

Andromeda Galaxy M31_dw.jpg
 

AlanLichty

Moderator
Looks pretty neat to those of us who are not familiar with the quirks of how to shoot/process images like this one :)
 

JimFox

Moderator
Staff member
Looks pretty neat to those of us who are not familiar with the quirks of how to shoot/process images like this one :)
Thanks so much Alan! It looks pretty neat to me too! I am really happy to have gotten that color on the arms of the Galaxy, my first time a few weeks back I didn’t have any of that color and it looked to plain. So the longer length of capture I think helped with those details.
 

beavens

Forum Helper
Looks good and way better than I can do! If I had to nit on something it would be that it looks like your stars have a SLIGHT trail to them.

Jeff
 

JimFox

Moderator
Staff member
Looks good and way better than I can do! If I had to nit on something it would be that it looks like your stars have a SLIGHT trail to them.

Jeff
Thanks Jeff!

The hazard of cropping closer is it shows a few flaws. I don’t know if it’s trailing or a lens flaw. Because the stars look the same whether it was taken at 1 min or 5 mins when I zoom in to 100%, the stars should be have longer trails at 5 mins if it was a tracking issue I would think. I still have a lot to learn and figure out.:oops:
 

beavens

Forum Helper
Thanks Jeff!

The hazard of cropping closer is it shows a few flaws. I don’t know if it’s trailing or a lens flaw. Because the stars look the same whether it was taken at 1 min or 5 mins when I zoom in to 100%, the stars should be have longer trails at 5 mins if it was a tracking issue I would think. I still have a lot to learn and figure out.:oops:
True that - I don't know much about astro but I have heard that not all lenses are adept at it.

Jeff
 

JimFox

Moderator
Staff member
True that - I don't know much about astro but I have heard that not all lenses are adept at it.

Jeff
Actually a lot of people are using the Tamron 150-600mm, so odds are it was an operator error rather then a lens issue. :rolleyes:
 

Mike Lewis

Staff Member
Jim,

That's really a pretty spectacular first try at M31! Just go back and see what I started with - no comparison. Your colors are great and you have a good compromise between faint detail and completely blowing out the core.

The star trailing is visible. I would say if those are sub-exposure times you have used successfully multiple times in the past at this focal length then perhaps a little more care in the polar alignment. If not, and you feel like your polar alignment was representative of many successful runs in the past, you may be pushing up against the limits of your setup tracking-wise, although I do seem to recall you have successfully shot at longer than 300mm in the past?

dark skies are helping a lot too. And lastly, as we previously discussed, check the individual frames for star trailing. You may find you have mostly frames that tracked better and it is oonly a few frames (that can be thrown out) that are producing the majority of the trailing, giving you a little less signal 9that may not even get noticed0 in exchange for tighter stars and less detail smearing in the galaxy.

ML
 

JimFox

Moderator
Staff member
Jim,

That's really a pretty spectacular first try at M31! Just go back and see what I started with - no comparison. Your colors are great and you have a good compromise between faint detail and completely blowing out the core.

The star trailing is visible. I would say if those are sub-exposure times you have used successfully multiple times in the past at this focal length then perhaps a little more care in the polar alignment. If not, and you feel like your polar alignment was representative of many successful runs in the past, you may be pushing up against the limits of your setup tracking-wise, although I do seem to recall you have successfully shot at longer than 300mm in the past?

dark skies are helping a lot too. And lastly, as we previously discussed, check the individual frames for star trailing. You may find you have mostly frames that tracked better and it is oonly a few frames (that can be thrown out) that are producing the majority of the trailing, giving you a little less signal 9that may not even get noticed0 in exchange for tighter stars and less detail smearing in the galaxy.

ML
Thanks so much! I was really happy with how it turned out.

I have gone back over the individual photos and found a few that were showed a touch of movement, so I pulled those out. Right now I won't have time to process it again. Yes, I have tracked fine at 500mm, so 300mm isn't an issue, I will have to watch the alignment closer next time, and may cut it down to 2min max subs.
 

Mike Lewis

Staff Member
Thanks so much! I was really happy with how it turned out.

I have gone back over the individual photos and found a few that were showed a touch of movement, so I pulled those out. Right now I won't have time to process it again. Yes, I have tracked fine at 500mm, so 300mm isn't an issue, I will have to watch the alignment closer next time, and may cut it down to 2min max subs.
That sounds like a sound plan, and will also look forward to your re-process to see what that might do to the star shapes.

ML
 

Colorado CJ

Well-Known Member
Fantastic first Andromeda!

That is MUCH better than my first, or even 5th Andromeda. Editing astro images is definitely different than regular photography. Lots of "tricks" to learn along the way. You'll find each image you get better and better with the editing.

One trick I can share, is to use a program called StarNet++ to edit out all the stars, then clean up any remaining stars in photoshop. This leaves you with just the galaxy, or nebula to edit, so you can really bring out the details.

After editing to your liking, make a new layer and put the original photo (with the stars) it and use the "lighten" blend mode.

This will give you a much more detailed galaxy or nebula without making the stars larger/bloated. I do this for many, but not all of my photos. I usually do it to areas of the sky that have huge amounts of stars since it brings the focus of the image back to the galaxy or nebula.

Looks like you are catching the bug!
 
This is the Andromeda Galaxy M31. It's one of the ones I took longer images of last week to get more detail in them at Joshua Tree which is a Bortle 3 sky (Pretty Dark).

It's a rushed editing job with my mom in the hospital, but I wanted to get a go at this one since I didn't like my earlier attempt from weeks prior that I didn't post. Learning to pull details from Galaxies seems to be a bit different then Nebulas, and so it's a work in progress as I continue to learn.

38 - 3min exp at ISO 800
16 - Dark Frames
10 - Bias Frames
SkyGuider Pro - Tracking Mount
Nikon D850 with Tamron 150-600mm at 300mm

I am not totally happy with this, but I am happy with it if that makes sense. I hope to improve upon this in the future.

All comments are welcome,

Jim

View attachment 25937
That is just beautiful, Jim. If I was still teaching an astronomy section in my earth science classes I would ask you if I could use your images for illustrations.
 
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