The Andromeda Galaxy

The Andromeda Galaxy also known as M31 is the closest major galaxy to us! It's 2.5 million light-years away, but it's one of the few galaxies that is moving towards us. It is excpected to collide with the milky-way in 4.5 billion years. Hopefully we get some clear skies to capture this event.

 

This was shot over 4 nights in September:

12.09.2020 97x240s

15.09.2020 36x240s

19.09.2020 46x240s

20.09.2020 40x240s

 

This image has therefore a total integration time of roughly 14.5 Hours!

 

Processing started with stacking in Pixinsight. I did some basic processing like background extraction and so on. Most of the processing however was done in Darktable (it works great for astro images). I manually corrected the colors to my likeing, increased the saturation and contrast of fine detail in the galaxy.

 

Camera: Canon EOS 6D

Mount: Skywatcher EQ5 Pro

Telescope: Omegon Pro Astrograph 154/600 F4

Guide camera: Orion starshoot autoguider

Guidescope: Orion 50mm

Coma Corrector: Skywatcher aplanatic coma corrector

 

I hope you like it!

Done