M31

My first attempt on M31 for the year. TOA 150 w/reducer. Manually guided. Image represents a short stack of 8 200s subs. Camera: STL11000.

Attached Image:

Nice work, Louis. I have always had a preference for monochrome images, probably due to my initial exposure to astrophotos in the 1950s. I also have a preference for refractors and your TAK certainly performs well.

George

Hi Louis,
Another nice image, and great manual guiding...
Dave

Very nice and especially so with manual guiding!

Thanks for everyone's positive comments.

I too was first introduced to astrophotography through the black and white imagery of the 50s/60s. Monochrome astroimages have always appealed to me over color images largely because of the classical aspect and seemingly, the adherence to a more scientific presentation. Like fine art photography, black and white is stark and truthful. Although I enjoy looking at color astroimages, you just never really know if it's the objects true color given the nature of processing those images. Color balance is always the opinion of the image processor. I also like to underprocess a little in order to preserve realism. Too often I see astroimagers overprocessing images in order to exagerate or dramatize their images.