M-31 Andromeda Galaxy using Ioptron Skytracker

Well, we finally got a clear night with no moon here in central Indiana so I took advantage of the situation to grab some subs of M-31.

Equipment:

Canon 1D Mk IV
70-200 f/2.8 L IS II
Ioptron Skytracker
Backyard EOS software for camera control


Exposure info:

200mm
f/2.8
ISO 1600

22 light frames – 11 @ 90 seconds, 11 @120 seconds
44 dark frames
1 flat frames
30 bias frames

Stacked using DSS 3.3.4 with additional processing in Lightroom 5.7

I also did a couple of exposures at 3 minutes just to test the tracking and had some success, but didn't have enough time to do a lot of testing. The Mk IV and 70-200 and ballhead I use are just about at the weight limit of the Ioptron.

I still have a huge learning curve to climb with using DSS and post-processing.

very nice results!

Looks very nice . I would do a closer crop so detail can be seen better tho . WF shots are nice but for detail you need larger .

very nice

Celestron wrote in post #17328403
Looks very nice . I would do a closer crop so detail can be seen better tho . WF shots are nice but for detail you need larger .

Celestron, thanks for the tip. You are right about the tighter crop; there is much more detail. I still need to play with the colors a bit, they don't look quite right to me. Here you go:

Your not far off on colors . Maybe leaning towards magenta too much but don't loose the blue colors . Look at this M31 of Robert Gendlers . You can see what is mostly acceptable in color relations .

http://www.robgendlera​stropics.com/M31NMmosa​icS.html

Very nice work Scott. Tracking looks good at 2 minutes, the Ioptron seems to be handling the weight well.

Love it. About to venture forth with my vixen polarie and see how i go.

I agree with celestron about the magenta but it's still a gorgeous shot.

Amazing to get an image like this with a 200mm lens, is it cropped in?

<excuse my ignorance>

Lester Wareham wrote in post #17332116
Amazing to get an image like this with a 200mm lens, is it cropped in?

<excuse my ignorance>

Thanks a lot. I also agree on the magenta (will do some more PP tonight). Yes, both images are cropped from the original. I'll post the uncropped original here in a bit after I finish my beer and pizza so you can see how much I did crop it. I sure wish I had a sturdy enough mount and tracker to hold my 300mm f/2.8....that would be sweet. However, I am extremely impressed by the sharp images that the wide-open 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS II delivers.

As promised, here is the uncropped original:

Thx for posting these images and the original, amazing what that tracker can help one do.

When we get clear skies here I'll do same as you, use my 70-200 2.8 L mkII, but I'll add the 1.4 TC for some extra reach (280mm) and still be at f4 wide open.
Actually with my 1.6 crop 70D vs your 1.3 crop factor on your 1D mkIV I should have slightly more than even if you used your "big gun" 300mm lens

This is an amazing image no mater which version you look at.
All I can say is to throw a few shorter time images into the total subs for a more clear M31'score otherwise clarity of cloud is as good as you want. Alternatively you can bring down the cores brightness selectively in LR/PS.

The Key factor in success of the image (Beside the credit to photographer and spot on tracking device) is probably your good dark clear sky. BTW I know Indiana has many Green places, but are you any close to Connersville?

samsen wrote in post #17334274
This is an amazing image no mater which version you look at.
All I can say is to throw a few shorter time images into the total subs for a more clear M31'score otherwise clarity of cloud is as good as you want. Alternatively you can bring down the cores brightness selectively in LR/PS.

The Key factor in success of the image (Beside the credit to photographer and spot on tracking device) is probably your good dark clear sky. BTW I know Indiana has many Green places, but are you any close to Connersville?

Thanks, I tried bringing down the highlights in LR, but I did notice a big loss in some of the outer regions when I tried that. I'll have to try some masking inside PS to see if that works any better.

These photos were taken about 2 miles south of Fairland which is about 20 mi or so SE of Indianapolis. Connersville is about an hour drive to the east. The skies used to be much darker back in the late 70's and 80's. I have the city of Shelbyville (pop ~17,000) about 5 miles so the southeast which makes a quite a bit of a lightdome. One of these times I'm going to try to road trip somewhere a bit darker within the state, but I really want to do a real dark sky road trip down to Texas (Big Bend or Ft. Davis) next summer (mid-July) for a few nights of shooting.

Here is one of the 2 minute subs, completely unprocessed, so you can get an idea of the sky brightness from my site: