300 second exposure with my modified Canon 350xt (modified by Hutech corp, internal IR filter replaced with clear glass). Lens is a 30 yr old Takahashi E-160 newtonian telescope (fl = 503mm, f3.3). Telescope and camera guided with a losmandy g11 mount. ISO 800 and internal noise reduction on. Due to excessive light pollution from my backyard, I used a Hutech IDAS LPS filter (light suppresant). Post processing, selective curves, contrast and background, noise ninja to reduce noise. Curves used to color balance.
Andromeda is our sister galaxy and the only naked eye object consistently visible outside of our own milky way galaxy. On October and November evenings, look directly overhead for a "smudged out star", that's Andromeda, 2.3 million light years distant.
Thanks for all the positive feedback and the good showing! For anyone wondering how to make a photo like this, or at least how I do it, I wrote a "how to" on my web site.
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Lovely shot. I like that account of how you get dumped by the eggers and sucked into the black hole of astronomy on your profile page. I can feel the attraction already. My daughter and I plan to build an 8" Newtonian telescope this summer and lug it up to the top of the Green Mountains where we often go camping.... Your portfolio is very inspiring.
WOW! I was just going thru the free study entries & came across this! I can't believe it didn't score higher, this is absolutely awesome!! Going to go read your "how to" now, great shot!!
stunning and technically beyond my comprehension. I understand you have to track opposite the earth's rotation to shoot these? And look how sharp the stars are. This is so far beyond what most here will even understand (me included) I doubt it's being received well. But I wanted to let you know I appreciate it. Your work makes me want to go there. :-)
Thanks for submitting something different. I'm better for having seen your entry.
Wow. Finally a astrophotography here on DPC. Its such a rare sight. This one is very well exposed and processed to. I feel curious about what kind of equipment you used. I hope other DPCers like it as much as I do. Maybe a little sharpening would make it more crisp?
See, that's the trouble with putting an image like this in a Free Study where you will get voters who automatically see an image like this and are so stuck in a 'small world' box .... that they think this must be either photoshopped, 'copied from Hubble' or could not be achieved in a single exposure (re the validation (which in this case is a good little 'badge' to have here)). Having said that, I do wish I knew enough about astronomy to comment on this from a scientific point of view (and also photographic, because these images require a developed skill set (and equipment)). However I can comment on the aesthetics and, whilst this is of course a beautiful subject, the colors look slightly washed and the black is not as black as I'd like to see, especially to make the galaxy 'pop' more. I 'guess' it is fairly text book for this galaxy, and it is difficult to make 'creative' suggestions for such an image. The only thing I wonder about is, whether a variation in composition and/or framing might give this an edge over other similar images. I do hope we get an Astronomy Challenge. And, I hope one day to be able to take/create an image like this. Until then I always admire the images of those that do and have some appreciation of the work involved and knowledge required. Hope that all makes sense. Giving this a 7, but one of the most difficult images I've had to score at DPC. Up to 8 from 7 - because of the difficulty involved with this single exposure.
Most excellent! For a resize it looks really clear. I have never tried celestial photography but would like to. Having read something about it, hopefully this was done without stacking. Really great results for non stacking. Wouldn't want to see this DQed.
is this one of those shots where you hook up the camera to a telescope? I would to do that some day. the problem with these shots though is that they aren't very dynamic. It's cool, but static.
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