Sunday 11 November 2012

GUIDING !!!!!!

Got a good clear night on Saturday (for a change) so got myself out and setup nice and early. Things didn't quite go to plan and to be honest spent a couple of unproductive hours faffing around.

Once I managed to get a grip of myself and set a decent workplan I actually started to get some results.

The mount was Polar Aligned, the mount and weights added, setup balanced and all plugged into my laptop. Carte de Ceil and EQmod were started and configured and my guidescope was calibrated.

Having failed miserably to get a decent shot of M31 Andromeda before, I set myself the challenge of grabbing some decent subs to work with. I took x5 600 second exposures and x1 1200 second exposure then added Darks, Flats and Bias frames. the result is below:

click to enlarge

M31 Andromeda Galaxy is the nearest spiral galaxy to our own, the Milky Way at a distance of 2,500,000 light years away. you can just see M32 (a dwarf elliptical galaxy) at the bottom of the screen.

I am really pleased with this image but know it needs more work to bring out the colours a bit more.

Guiding definately allows you to grab more photons and thus really start to bring out the details. Although it can be frustrating and unpredictable at times, guiding is definately the only way to achieve great images. 

The difference between this image and the one from my previous blog is unquestionable. what a difference.



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