M31 - The Andromeda Galaxy

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This very famous galaxy is our nearest large (Milky Way type) neighbor at 2.9 million light years distant. It is large (178x63 arc-min) and bright (magnitude 3.4) making it visible to the unaided eye. It's large size makes it a challenging CCD object. Also known as NGC 224, it has a spiral structure very similar to our own Milky Way galaxy. It is in the constellation Andromeda (the Princess of Ethiopia). Its coming this way, so that in the far future M31 and the Milky Way will merge.

The image above was taken with the ST-8E camera at f/5 on the new FSQ 106N and AP900.  We were at the 2007 Oregon Star Party.  The image was taken across two nights: Aug 16 / 17.  It is an RGB mosaic (as detailed below) with a total exposure time of 3 hrs 20 min.  Calibration and alignment were done in MaxIm DL.  Final processing was done with Photoshop.  Unlike my default, North is to the right.

Left Side Image Stack                  Right Side Image Stack

Filter

 Exposure Count Binning
Luminance (none)    
Red 30 min 6 x 5 min 1x1
Green 30 min 6 x 5 min 1x1
Blue 60 min 12 x 5 min 1x1
 

Filter

 Exposure Count Binning
Luminance (none)    
Red 20 min 4 x 5 min 1x1
Green 20 min 4 x 5 min 1x1
Blue 40 min 8 x 5 min 1x1

Previous attempt, taken on July 23, 1998 at the Table Mountain Star Party.

The image above is a mosaic of nine shots stitched together into one large image then resampled to shrink for display. The full data set makes a nice high detail print out. The individual mosaic images were each 1 minute exposures at f/3.3 with the LX200 and 416XT CCD. The images were also flat field corrected prior to stitching to reduce edge effects.