M31 revisited

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bobharmony
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M31 revisited

#1

Post by bobharmony »


I haven't imaged the Andromeda Nebula in 5 years so I decided to give it a try with the Nikon this season. A slightly larger and more sensitive sensor than the Canon, and I had great plans for capturing 5 hours or so on it. I planned the framing using N.I.N.A's tool and was ready to go.

Of course the weather had slightly different ideas than I did. First the afternoon clouds hung pretty tough so I wasn't able to start imaging until after 9:30, 90 minutes later than the 8 PM I had in mind. As the evening progressed there were a few bunches of light clouds that gave PHD2 fits with keeping a star with sufficient SNR to guide on. If I ever hear the "bing" that goes with the "Star lost" message again, it will be too soon. Then as often happens this time of year, the dew came out with a vengeance and shut me down much earlier than I had anticipated. I never even made it to the meridian flip. I also had to toss a fair number of subs as PHD2 couldn't keep a star to guide on as the dew eventually blinded the ST80.

I wound up with a total of 74 minutes (better than the 60 I managed the last time I tried - as I recall that session was cut short by dew as well, September and October are iffy for moisture around here). Calibrated with darks, flats, and dark flats. I got 37 usable 2 minute subs and did a quick process in StarTools. If I get another clear night in the next week or so I may try to add some time and get the image I really want to see!
M31 pass 1.jpg
As always, comments and questions are encouraged!

Bob
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Re: M31 revisited

#2

Post by Juno16 »


Awesome Bob!

I can't believe that you managed what you did in such a short time.

No dew heaters? I know where I live, I would not get very far without them. The only salvation would be if there was wind. I made my first set out of very inexpensive nichrome wire and duct tape using a led light controller. About $25 for both the main scope, guide scope, and controller.

You captured some pretty nice details in about an hour. Nice! I know that you want feedback and I do see a bit of green near the core on both my pc and iphone.

I hope that you get some good sky time next week and can add to this.

I heard you mention N.I.N.A. Cool. I hope that you are enjoying it.
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Re: M31 revisited

#3

Post by bobharmony »


Juno16 wrote: Sat Oct 02, 2021 12:27 pm
No dew heaters? I know where I live, I would not get very far without them. The only salvation would be if there was wind. I made my first set out of very inexpensive nichrome wire and duct tape using a led light controller. About $25 for both the main scope, guide scope, and controller.

You captured some pretty nice details in about an hour. Nice! I know that you want feedback and I do see a bit of green near the core on both my pc and iphone.

I heard you mention N.I.N.A. Cool. I hope that you are enjoying it.
Thanks, Jim for the feedback and the encouraging words. I really like working with the D5300, since I got a decent flat light source it has become pretty straightforward. I'm happy to report that it has found a good home :)

Dew heaters - I have been resisting adding that bit of kit, and am not sure I am ready yet. It most impacts me in the Fall for some reason and has mostly plagued my experience with M31 and M33 over the years. I have thought about adding a fan behind the mirror, but the C6N mirror mount looks pretty well sealed up back there when I take the cover off and I'm not sure I could get any decent air flow through there. I may try setting up a fan to one side of the mount blowing air across it and see if that helps at all.

I agree about the hint of green in there. Interestingly the "Max RGB" view in the StarTools Color module shows a lot of red in the core and blue everywhere else with just a touch of yellow right around the core - no green at all. It reminds me of M57 more than anything else. I will be messing around with color balance and see what I can do.

I have not embraced N.I.N.A. in its entirety just yet. I really like some of the tools (framing is one, and I like the manual rotator concept), but I recall you having trouble integrating the Nikon, and I am still not a fan of the Discord support model (just an old fashioned guy, I guess). Ivo has been very responsive to whatever issues I come up with using APT, most recently putting a fix into APT in a matter of days for its differences with CdC in reporting camera angle, even though IMO the issue is squarely on the CdC side of things. I was looking at N.I.N.A. originally as being needed when I moved to a dedicated camera, but using the Nikon has made that move less important to me for the time being.

Hoping to get decent weather next Thursday or Friday, we'll see how that plays out!

Bob
Hardware: Celestron C6-N w/ Advanced GTmount, Baader MK iii CC, Orion ST-80, Canon 60D (unmodded), Nikon D5300 (modded), Orion SSAG
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Re: M31 revisited

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Post by messier 111 »


the details are exquisite , you did a fine image , thx .
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Re: M31 revisited

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Post by MariusD69 »


Awesome! Great work, Bob!
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Re: M31 revisited

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Post by bobharmony »


I tweaked the color balance a bit to ease off the red and try to remove any remaining green. No other processing done to this point.
M31 pass 1 color adjusted.jpg
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Re: M31 revisited

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Post by SkyHiker »


bobharmony wrote: Sun Oct 03, 2021 3:46 am I tweaked the color balance a bit to ease off the red and try to remove any remaining green. No other processing done to this point.

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Bob
Sometimes simple things are hard to achieve with complex tools. I think any generic photo editor could fix the color balance with a few slides of the sliders. More in detail, there's too much green and red in the bright parts, too much blue in the shade parts. The core is a bit blown out, this usually happens when high count bins are cut off. Better to use curves than levels. Ok so maybe not any editor for perfection, PS and Gimp would do it. It's a nice set of data, look forward to your next version.
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Re: M31 revisited

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Post by bobharmony »


Thanks, Henk. Yes, this is one of those re-works I should have waited on posting until after I had stepped away from it for a few hours, then revisited. I went back and checked out my StarTools log and realized I hadn't slected a "region of interest" in the autodev process. It is part of my normal flow and helps to get a better handle on what to bring out and what to push to the background. I will start a new process and see if I can get things under control somewhat.

BTW. I am kind of partial to the blue in the outer regions, and need to control my tendency to push it at the expense of other areas.

Bob
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Re: M31 revisited

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Post by bobharmony »


After more thought (and an observation by someone who looked at the data that there is no gradient in the stacked image) I took another run at M31, this time reducing the gradient reduction from 75% to 4% in the Wipe module. The results are less showy but possibly more pleasing.
M31 pass 2.jpg
I will check on the StarTools forum for ways to handle data sets that don't contain a gradient. Must have been a really transparent night around here!

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Post by ic_1101 »


All versions are excellent, nicely done Bob!
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Re: M31 revisited

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Post by JohnP_1 »


Nice one Bob. Lots of detail for sure. I would recommend the dew heaters; I use them every single time all year long (I do live along the coast)...

The histogram on this looks like it has been normalized artificially. I would recommend that you manipulate it manually. StarTools has some good features and I use it, but, for high dynamic range objects, you need to be careful that it doesn't overcompensate. The histogram shows all three channels looking like a roller coaster.
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Re: M31 revisited

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Post by Juno16 »


Really like your last process Bob! Nice and smooth with a fine background.
Very nicely done!
Jim

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Post by Ylem »


Stunning images Bob!
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Post by Gmetric »


Well done, Bob; you've pulled out a lot, given the time on target. Nicely done.
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Post by bobharmony »


Last pass for a while - I took things simpler this time with Autodev, Bin 35%. crop, Wipe, HDR, Color, and denoise only. I am going to stop and look at the images for a while.
M31 pass 4.jpg
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Post by bobharmony »


I ran a whole bunch of iterations trying to get to an image that pleases me, and finally had to stop and throw one up. I tend to overdo things a bit to try and squeeze out every last bit of color and detail hiding in the data, but I restrained myself a little bit with this one, believe it or not. Anyway, here is my latest version using StarTools 1.8.
M31 ST1-8 Shadow adjustment in autodev.jpg
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Post by STEVE333 »


Hi Bob - You have definitely improved your background through all the changes. The image is much improved, well done. I always tend to over process my images so I can sympathize with you. Are they ever done?

Good luck on the next hundred iterations of processing this image - chuckles

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Post by notFritzArgelander »


Truly splendid!
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Post by Juno16 »


Very nice Bob!

The latest process is a keeper and ready for “The Wall”.
Jim

Scopes: Explore Scientific ED102 APO, Sharpstar 61 EDPH II APO, Samyang 135 F2 (still on the Nikon).
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#20

Post by jthommes »


Bob,
Great capture. I like the later processing - lots of improvement there on the color.
Jim Thommes
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