M31 from Lydd - Work in Progress

[MarkS]

Taken at the Norwood Farm campsite near Lydd last night.

5 hours of data in 5 minute subs.
Modified Canon EOS 350D on Skywatcher ED80 with William Optics MkII 0.8x reducer/flattener.
Ambient temperature 9C.



Larger scale is here:  http://gallery.orpington-astronomy.org.uk/albums/userpics/10046/M31_260909.jpg
This larger scale image is 2x2 binned and cropped.

This is still a work in progress - this is a very quick initial process.


Mark

[Tony G]

Great image again Mark,

That for me would be processed enough and I would be over the moon (pardon the pun), but I know you'll get more out of it.

Excellent. 

Tony G

[Daniel]

Just Awesome Mark!!! love the colours and the detail in those dustlanes reaching right to the outside

Daniel
:O)

[Carole]

Fabulous Mark.

Carole

[JohnP]

yummy.. yummy... yummy.... superb mate... sounds like you & dee had a great night - John

[RobertM]

Wow Mark, you have been busy!

I think you could consider dimming the core a little to show more of the central dust lanes (personal preference that one).

Looks like everyone is raising the bar with their imaging now the cooler darker nights are starting to appear again - great stuff.

Robert

[The Thing]

OMG

[Rocket Pooch]

Very good mark

[Mike]

Excellent Mark. Once you have processed it to even out the core brightness it should be fantastic.

[MarkS]

Robert, Mike, you are right.  I processed it like that to disguise the fact that I burnt out the core!

The annoying thing is that the previous week, at the unofficial DSC, I used exactly the same exposure (5 min at ISO800) and it didn't burn out.  I guess the light must have been attenuated by thin cloud.

What I will do is combine this weekend's data with the 4 (!) subs taken at unofficial DSC.

Mark

[MarkS]

Here is version 2 - it's slightly more restrained than version 1:



It took ages to get the core looking right.

Larger scale is here:  http://www.markshelley.co.uk/webdisk/m31_260909v2.jpg
This larger scale image is 2x2 binned and cropped.

Mark

[Daniel]

That's wonderfull mark, core is ooksing much softer and you've retained all that lovely blue out colour, awesome stuff man!

Might be worth getting some Ha for this one too!

Daniel
:O)

[RobertM]

Much better Mark, though I think you've perhaps lost some of the vibrancy of the original.

I'm looking forward to doing a really deep M31 with a cooled camera when chance presents itself.

[MarkS]

Much better Mark, though I think you've perhaps lost some of the vibrancy of the original.

Thanks - after a few (in fact, many) abortive attempts I managed to apply Photoshop "curves" to the core region alone - this balanced out the brightness whilst preserving dust lanes and even stars (have a look on the Net and you'll notice how few M31 images preserve any stars in this region).  But I think I still need to increase the contrast in this region.

I've definitely lost vibrancy - which is a disappointment.  I'll try blending the colour planes from version 1 into version 2 - that might do the trick.

Mark

[Mike]

Some of the outer edge detail has been lost too. Definitely need to apply the processing to just the core region.