OK, I'm coming out of hiding....
There've been so many wonderful images posted here recently that I haven't felt worthy to post anything recently. I've fallen into the trap of working on an image so much that I either give up or never post because I keep trying to perfect it. Anyway, I've decided that enough is enough, so here it is, warts and all!
This is my first serious attempt at M31. Capture and processing details below:
Camera: SBIG ST-8XE
Scope: Borg 76ED at f/6.6 (no reducer)
Mount: Takahashi EM200
L: 27 x 5 minutes binned 1x1
R: 9 x 5 minutes binned 2x2
G: 9 x 5 minutes binned 2x2
B: 9 x 5 minutes binned 2x2
Images acquired and reduced in CCDSoft. Combined using Ray Gralak's Sigma Reject following his online help. RGB combine in AIP4WIN. LRGB combine in Photoshop CS. Levels, curves and gradient removal in Photoshop CS.
The color frames were not well-aligned with the L frames (this is only my second attempt at imaging with a meridian flip), so I had to crop the final color image.
A larger-sized version can be seen here:
http://members.nuvox.net/~on.aunt/DSO/M31Color.jpg
The B&W image should be worthy of a look-see as well, since it had to be cropped for the color version:
http://members.nuvox.net/~on.aunt/DSO/M31BWSmall.jpg
Comments and suggestions welcome.
Eric
There've been so many wonderful images posted here recently that I haven't felt worthy to post anything recently. I've fallen into the trap of working on an image so much that I either give up or never post because I keep trying to perfect it. Anyway, I've decided that enough is enough, so here it is, warts and all!
This is my first serious attempt at M31. Capture and processing details below:
Camera: SBIG ST-8XE
Scope: Borg 76ED at f/6.6 (no reducer)
Mount: Takahashi EM200
L: 27 x 5 minutes binned 1x1
R: 9 x 5 minutes binned 2x2
G: 9 x 5 minutes binned 2x2
B: 9 x 5 minutes binned 2x2
Images acquired and reduced in CCDSoft. Combined using Ray Gralak's Sigma Reject following his online help. RGB combine in AIP4WIN. LRGB combine in Photoshop CS. Levels, curves and gradient removal in Photoshop CS.
The color frames were not well-aligned with the L frames (this is only my second attempt at imaging with a meridian flip), so I had to crop the final color image.
A larger-sized version can be seen here:
http://members.nuvox.net/~on.aunt/DSO/M31Color.jpg
The B&W image should be worthy of a look-see as well, since it had to be cropped for the color version:
http://members.nuvox.net/~on.aunt/DSO/M31BWSmall.jpg
Comments and suggestions welcome.
Eric
Attached Image:
