More works-in-progress: M31

We had an unheard-of five clear nights in a row in our area. As luck would have it, I had scheduled a vacation over this week months ago. I was planning on going to Chiefland, FL for their star party down there, but the forecast down there was not as promising as it was up here. So I ended up staying put. Fortunately, the Chiefland registration must have thrown the weather gods for a loop, giving me these clear nights over a new moon! 8)

Here's the first target I shot over the past week, M31. 42 luminance exposures at 3 minutes each, with an STL-6303 camera on a Takahashi FSQ-106, Takahashi EM200 mount. I have 6 hours of RGB data still to process.

Eric

Attached Image:

IC405, the Flaming Star nebula, and IC410, the one with the "Tadpoles", fit nicely in the FOV of my FSQ/6303 combo. Here's the IC405 portion of that composite image. 6 x 30 minutes through an Astrodon 6nm filter.

I have about five hours' worth of RGB plus another hour of H-alpha to add to this. I hope I don't mess it up!

Eric

Attached Image:

And here's IC410. Taken from the same frame as IC405.

I'm amazed at the night and day difference between the 6303/Astrdon combo vs. my ST-8 with what-I-believe-to-be a CS 4.5 nm filter. With the ST-8, I could barely bring IC410 out from the background noise, even with four half-hour exposures. With the 6303/Astrodon combo, even a half-hour exposure was showing details in the raw data! I'm not sure if I have a denser-than-reported filter in the ST-8. Be that as it may, the 6303 is proving to be a topnotch narrow-band-imaging workhorse with the Astrodon!

I hope to post more later, and I really hope I can pull off adding the color data.

Eric

Attached Image:

SWEET SHOTS! 8)
Can't wait to see the FINAL products!

Keep'em coming Enrico!

Eric,
Your "work in progress" beats my finished product! That's quite a field on the M31. Nice string of work.
Larry

Well Enrico, you sure exploited the opportunity

FANTASTIC SET OF SHOTS: I wouldn't know which one I like the best.
Congratulations!!!!


Ciao
Luca

Thanks, everyone!

Eric