Meet M31 Andromeda Galaxy; taken with Esprit 100 and Moravian G3-16200EC

Click image for high resolution JPG (18mb)

This is with data acquired in September and October 2018 from my backyard in Kitchener, Ontario. Using a Skywatcher Esprit 100mm triplet refractor and a Moravian G3-16200EC CCD camera.

I recently moved my astro setup to my backyard where there is less light pollution to contend with. While I reduce the impact of lights while imaging, I have 70ft trees that block half my sky. It was a trade off I made in order to have what I call a semi-permanent setup. It doesn’t require as much to get up and running now and I can image all night if weather permits. These benefits outweighed losing some of my sky, IMO. I’m still able to image a vast amount of targets though. M31 the Andromeda Galaxy is one such jewel of the night sky.

This is the first time I’ve imaged M31 with my new G3-16200EC CCD camera. It has a large chip and pixel size than the ASI 1600MMC cmos camera I was using previous. The image itself appears sharper and more colourful. I also find the stars look better, not as bloated, as with the ASI camera. You can view the previous M31 image here.

This image uses a synthetic luminance channel I created from the R-G-B channels. It should also be noted there is no H-alpha data in this as I did not have opportunity to collect it. That being said, the red nebulosity regions within M31 still stand out quite well.

Technical:

• Skywatcher Esprit 100mm APO triplet refractor, F5.5
• Moravian G3 16200EC CCD @ -10deg
• Optolong filters (Ha-R-G-B)
• Skywatcher EQ6 mount
• 6 hours / 5min subs
• SGP, PHD, EQmod softwares for acquisition
• Pixinsight 1.8 calibration, processing
• Seeing and transparency average