M31 with 5-inch AP apo at f/4.5 with telecompressor/field flattener and Canon 20Da camera. Stack of four 15-minute exposures + two 2-minute exposures for the core. Taken from home Oct. 15, 2006. Image sharpened with 10 and 50 pixel High pass filters.
A test image of M31 taken for a book illustration using an entry-level deep sky setup to show what’s possible. This was with the SharpStar 76mm EDPH apo refractor on the Sky-Watcher EQM-35 mount, and guided with the ASIAir Pro and guidescope and the iPad app. The setup costs about $3000, about the minimum for a good deep sky rig for shooting with a telescope. This is a stack of 16 x 4 minute exposures with the Canon 60Da and with LENR on for all frames, so 64 minutes of actual images but an equal number of dark frames subtracted in the camera over 2 hours total of shooting. Taken Sept 16, 2020 under clear but smoky skies. All stacking, alignment and processing with Photoshop with Raw files developed in Adobe Camera Raw.
The well-known Andromeda Galaxy, Messier 31, with its companion galaxies. M32, below it and seemingly embedded in M31's outer arms, and M110 above M31. Many yellow giant stars litter the field, as foreground stars in our Milky Way Galaxy. North is up in this framing. This is a stack of 6 x 8-minute exposures at ISO 800 with the Canon Ra and on the StarField Optics Géar80 apo refractor with its matching reducer/flattener for f/4.8. Taken from home through breaks in passing clouds as part of testing of this new scope. No darks or LENR used, just dithering between each frame using the MGEN autoguider. High pass sharpening and a Starizona Galaxy Enhance effect was added to bring out the dark dust lanes.
