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M31 stacked and then processed at 96 bits

Canon EOS5DMkII 254mm Newtonian @ 1200mm 65 x 30s f/4.8 ISO6400 2010-12-11 19:58:54-20:37:10 UT

Taken from Rookhope, Co. Durham (Bortle 3)

HEQ5 mount, driven but not guided.

The galaxy is too large to fit completely in the field of view of the telescope.

 

I am just finishing a major enhancement of my own GRIP software so that all image processing can be done in the 32-bit-per-channel accumulator that results from stacking images (and also the result can be saved as a FITS file without reducing the bit depth).

Using that on an M31 image I photographed in 2010 December, I was able to bring out the tremendous amount of detail seen here. As an aesthetic image it is overprocessed but it demonstrates that there is a huge amount of information in a stacked image that cannot always be seen.

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Uploaded on May 8, 2011
Taken on May 8, 2011