Intergrated Flux Nebula Surrounding M31 Andromeda and M33 Triangulum

Here is a late processing of a widefield target from earlier this fall. This field contains two major galaxies The Andromeda Galaxy(M31) and Triangulum galaxy (M33).

The IFN "integrated flux nebula" is a very faint intra galactic dust cloud which reflects light emitted by our milky way. IFN and ISM, interstellar medium, can be spotted sweeping across vast areas of our skies amongst the more open regions of our milkyway sky. There are several surveys which have mapped out the IFN which can be very helpful for identifying faint structures. It is very difficult to discern between gradients and ifn when processing structures this faint. I was able to pull a strong luminance image from the green channel and bring out the faint nebulosity by blending with the original iamge.

Sky Mag: 21.2
Integration: 70 x 90s subs at iso 1600, 105 minutes total integration

Calibration: 25 Darks 35 flats 800 frame master bias

Camera: full spectrum T2i and astronomik uv/ir cut clip filter.

Lens: pentax-m 50mm F1.7 stopped to F4

Calibrated in Pi and processed in PS CC

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/PGBC​Jh

Wow , great capture ! I can't say I have ever seen M33 and M31 in the same frame . Most want a closer look but these type WF shots are great . Also I can barely see IFN surrounding but I can see it and that's a big plus !! Is this cropped any , I noticed you used a 50mm lens @ f/4 ?

Celestron wrote in post #18205083
Wow , great capture ! I can't say I have ever seen M33 and M31 in the same frame . Most want a closer look but these type WF shots are great . Also I can barely see IFN surrounding but I can see it and that's a big plus !! Is this cropped any , I noticed you used a 50mm lens @ f/4 ?

Thanks, I do not have a calibrated monitor and this is something I really need to invest for when I am processing faint objects. I am not sure how this looks from screen to screen, I have the contrast as flat as possible on my monitor so between that and my ipad, I just make a rough guesstimate. The fov is somewhat unique for these two objects, I only recently noticed that M33 was close enough to M31 to frame and decided to try and capture some ifn which I have spotted in a few other images. I have shot Andromeda with several scopes and lenses and decided to give a wide field a try. This was done with an old pentax 50mm F1.7 lens, 45 years old and probably worth $45 lol. It was stopped down to F4 and performs pretty well given its age. My parents used this lens on their honey moon years ago and I have since borrowed and re purposed some of their old film lenses. The fov is slightly cropped at the edges but 95% of the original still remains.

I know exactly what your looking for in your image . Here is the only one i could find on APOD : http://apod.nasa.gov/a​pod/ap130926.html

That Pentax lens were and still are great lenses . Hold the lens facing up and get under a ceiling light and you will be able to see the coating on the lens and if any imperfections are present you should be able to see that also in the reflections of the light on the lens . I have several pentax lens , I used a Pentax K1000 film camera back in the beginning and loved it . With the Pentax to Canon adapter that lens works well except for auto focus . Didn't matter tho cause I always manually focused it anyway . Your lens tho did justify this image above tho !

Wow, of course Rogelio has shot the same thing with a ccd! lol. wow that is almost the exact same framing too, it looks like his is upside down by comparison but I do see that one wave like structure beneath Altinak in both of our images, so it seems to be a good matchup. I actually was inspired by an image taken by Hisayoshi Kato where I noticed these two side by side. He images from mauna kea under mag 22 skies so you can rely on just about everything you see in his images https://www.flickr.com​/photos/hiroc/15435380​398

Well here is a second processing form tonight, I tried bringing out more color and detail. I think this is about all I can do with 105 minutes worth of data.

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/PoxP​Jh

It looks absolutely gorgeous!!!! I guess you were using something like Astro trac to track the sky.

Wonderful shot! I really like it. Nicely done.

Yes a Celestron CGE equatorial mount

thanks man!

Wow. Great shot Wes!