Acquisition Details
| IC1848 | L | R | G | B |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frames | 76 | 102 | 60 | 164 |
| Exp. time | 120s | 120s | 120s | 120s |
| Flats | 20 | 20 | 20 | 20 |
| Darks | Master | |||
| Bias | Master |
Final Masters
Description
Normally, I am very critical of my work, but I am secretly quite proud of this result.
The weather is nothing but cloudy these days. Yesterday we’ve had one night of clear sky and M31 in Zenit. Guess what the target was…
This is my third attempt to capture M31, our closest neighboring galaxy. Its distance from us is “only” 2.5 million light years, which is relatively close in astronomical terms. Wanted to shoot H-alpha channel as well but trees were blocking the view by then. Might add those later.
M110, Andromeda’s satellite galaxy
M110 Galaxy
Another thing to keep in mind during the processing of this image was to make sure enough details of M110 remained visible. As you look closer, some dust cloud are visible.
Astrometry Calibration
| Astrometry Job | 8927496 |
| Center (RA, Dec) | (10.716, 41.263) |
| Center (RA, hms) | 00h 42m 51.856s |
| Center (Dec, dms) | +41° 15’ 46.807” |
| Size | 2.55 x 2.56 deg |
| Radius | 1.807 deg |
| Pixel Scale | 1.56 arcsec/pixel |
Data Processing
Processing was done in PixInsight only. Steps of the process are listed below:
- DynamicBackgroundExtraction on separate channels,
- LRGBCombination on only RGB channels
- SPCC,
- SNCR noise reduction (0,70) to reduce green noise,
- ArcsinhStretch a couple of times to stretch the RGB image where colors remain having their calibrated color value,
- BlurXTerminator on the L-channel for correcting stars and nebulae
- LRGBCombination to merge the noise L-image on the RGB-image
- StarXTerminator (splitting stars and background),
- Color adjustments on the starless image
- NoiseXTerminator on the starless image using masks for separate background and galaxy noise reduction
- Merging of the stars and starless image using PixelMath, expression: $T + STARS
- DarkStructureEnhance on the image (0,40) to enhance galaxy dust bands
- Final adjustments with CurvesTransformation
- Last small bit of noise reduction using NoiseXTerminator
- Star reduction/resizing using the StarDe-emphasis script (add the url https://pixinsight-updates.astroswell.com/ to your repositories)