ASTRO: M31 widefield

Have been playing with a setup, which should have the potential to give me
some nice 'widefield' images:
STL11000
GM8
TMB115
Williams optics field flattener.

Unfortunately (as is always the way), after getting the adapters made to
fit it all together, it has been cloudy in the UK, till the beginning of
this week, when a couple of 'clearish' nights developed. Fairly strong
Moonlight, which didn't help, and then a number of problems getting stuff
to work, led to the only useable image, being a set of one each, LRGB of
M31. All 200 second exposures, which gave quite a good (but rather noisy)
luminance, while the colours were rather underexposed. Decided to assemble
the image anyway, though with the noise, downsampled by 25%, to give a
rather smoother result. Though the colour sems rather lacking in red
especially on the galaxy core, it otherwise gives me significant 'hope',
showing the FOV involved. The flattener seems to work quite well, with CCD
Inspector showing a slight bulge 'up' in the centre of the image, and a
similar upturn at the extreme corners, but less than 20% 'worst case'
defocus, which is good on a field this large.
Anyway, worth a grin. :-)

Best Wishes

"Roger Hamlett" wrote

Have been playing with a setup, which should have the potential to give me
some nice 'widefield' images:
STL11000
GM8
TMB115
Williams optics field flattener.
........
......and then a number of problems getting stuff
to work.....

Roger,

It only takes one problem and it "doesn't work"........

I would suspect that you have more data hiding in the center of the
galaxy and you could stretch this image to show it. However, it is a great
image, despite your problems and the moonlight.

Last night I had a chance to observe thru a Williams 110mm APO and the
owner had some great prints showing M-31 which he had taken with a Canon
DSLR (before removing the filter). It was pretty similar to your image. We
also had the scope on the moon at around 250x and it provided very nice
views.

George Normandin

Roger,

that's a very impressive FOV indeed. You have some nice equipment for wide
field shots there.

Stefan

"Roger Hamlett" schrieb im
Newsbeitrag ...
Have been playing with a setup, which should have the potential to give me
some nice 'widefield' images:
STL11000
GM8
TMB115
Williams optics field flattener.

Unfortunately (as is always the way), after getting the adapters made to
fit it all together, it has been cloudy in the UK, till the beginning of
this week, when a couple of 'clearish' nights developed. Fairly strong
Moonlight, which didn't help, and then a number of problems getting stuff
to work, led to the only useable image, being a set of one each, LRGB of
M31. All 200 second exposures, which gave quite a good (but rather noisy)
luminance, while the colours were rather underexposed. Decided to assemble
the image anyway, though with the noise, downsampled by 25%, to give a
rather smoother result. Though the colour sems rather lacking in red
especially on the galaxy core, it otherwise gives me significant 'hope',
showing the FOV involved. The flattener seems to work quite well, with CCD
Inspector showing a slight bulge 'up' in the centre of the image, and a
similar upturn at the extreme corners, but less than 20% 'worst case'
defocus, which is good on a field this large.
Anyway, worth a grin. :-)

Best Wishes

"George Normandin" wrote in message
...

"Roger Hamlett" wrote

Have been playing with a setup, which should have the potential to give
me
some nice 'widefield' images:
STL11000
GM8
TMB115
Williams optics field flattener.
........
......and then a number of problems getting stuff
to work.....

Roger,

It only takes one problem and it "doesn't work"........

I would suspect that you have more data hiding in the center of the
galaxy and you could stretch this image to show it. However, it is a
great
image, despite your problems and the moonlight.

Last night I had a chance to observe thru a Williams 110mm APO and the
owner had some great prints showing M-31 which he had taken with a Canon
DSLR (before removing the filter). It was pretty similar to your image.
We
also had the scope on the moon at around 250x and it provided very nice
views.

George Normandin
I agree. However the image is so noisy, that I was really only
'interested' as a test of the setup, and slightly pleased by the FOV. Had
a chance late last night (cleared for a while), to take a 4 frames of M52.
The combination looks a lot more hopeful, and the astonishing thing is
that Pinpoint, reports over 28000 stars, even set on a very gentle set of
search criteria.
Starts to look very interesting. :-)

Best Wishes

"Roger Hamlett" wrote

You got the bubble nebula too Roger! Great image!!

George N

"George Normandin" wrote in message
...
"Roger Hamlett" wrote

You got the bubble nebula too Roger! Great image!!

George N
Yes. This one shows more promise I think. :-)
Now all I have to do, is take it all apart, and send the adapters to be
anodysed, at which moment, the skies will (of course) magically clear...

Best Wishes