By Request - M31 - The Great Andromeda Galaxy

[Jose Suro]

Hi All,

Some of you requested I post some of my astrophotography. Here's a shot of the Great Andromeda Galaxy, better known as Messier 31, or M31 for short. This is the largest of our neighboring galaxies and can be seen as a small puff of smoke in the sky with the naked eye from very dark locations. Distance to this galaxy has been hard to pin down but best estimates now is 2.9 million light years, meaning this image captured what it looked like 2.9 million years ago :).

Took this from my backyard in Tierra Verde, with my SBIG 11MP full frame camera, a Takahashi refractor and an Astrophysics mount. Total exposure was close to sixteen hours over three nights. The size posted here does a disservice to this image, it has excellent small detail that can only be seen at larger sizes. I had it printed at 20x30 inches and now hangs in my office :).

Thanks for looking.

Best,

Jose

[George DeCamp]

Just outrageous! I can't believe it can look this good from a back yard photo must be some setup you have...Thanks for posting this Jose the print must be stunning, I am coming over to see it next time I am in town! ;)

[David Kennedy]

Jose,
Well, you know already that this rocks if you've hung it in your office, but just in case: it rocks. The composition is very "centered," but the angle makes it work. Sixteen hour exposure over three nights? How does that work? Do you just ensure that you start (and end) the exposure at the same time every night? (And take pains to mount the telescope in the same place each time?)

Did you then stack the images in photoshop and set the layers only to show the added luminance of the sequential layers?

I suppose this is the down side of show and tell: now everyone will want the excruciating details!!! :D

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Jose,
Stuff like this is what go me into into night photography. For "poor quality".......this is simply stunningly beautiful...maybe one day I'll get to see the print,
Roman

[Bob Ettinger]

WOW, really killer and if it looks this good on the web, the full size must be awesome.

[Judd Patterson]

This is awesome work Jose! M31 is an amazing galaxy and much larger than most people realize. If you have dark skies you can easily spot it and even just a 300mm lens could produce an impressive image with a tracking mount. The night sky is really under appreciated and simply slips away from most of us who live under increasingly bright city (and even rural) skies.

[gary rouleau]

That shot is out of this world!

[Robert Amoruso]

Very cool.

[Paul Marcellini]

I love night photography, can't wait for a lower noise camera. This is just excellent.

[Dean Ingwersen]

Holy excrement...that is awesome. Thanks so much for sharing Jose, sensational work.

[Keith Kennedy]

Jose,

Just an amazing image. It has the WOW! factor. Thanks for posting--a real treat for me.


Keith

[Anita Rakestraw]

Very impressive, Jose, and a treat for me to see too! Thanks for posting. How exciting to be able to take these images yourself from your back yard!

[Jose Suro]

Jose,
Well, you know already that this rocks if you've hung it in your office, but just in case: it rocks. The composition is very "centered," but the angle makes it work. Sixteen hour exposure over three nights? How does that work? Do you just ensure that you start (and end) the exposure at the same time every night? (And take pains to mount the telescope in the same place each time?)

Did you then stack the images in photoshop and set the layers only to show the added luminance of the sequential layers?

I suppose this is the down side of show and tell: now everyone will want the excruciating details!!! :D

Thanks Everyone!

This image is a wide angle shot in astrophotography terms. It covers an area three times the size of the moon. You can always tell by how many stars are in the image. In narrow field imaging there are a lot fewer stars. The whole imaging system is computer controller from beginning to end. I had a pier built in my backyard, with four feet of concrete going into the ground and this ensures accuracy and repeatability. Here's my current wide angle setup:



Computer software controls the aiming, focusing, tracking and acquisition. The accuracy of computer focusing is around .010 inches of focus travel. Tracking and aiming accuracy is in the order of .0002 degrees. This is done by a separate sensor in the camera (the camera has two imagers) that keeps track of a single star's motion down to a 1/2 pixel. The computer detects the star's motion and sends tracking corrections to the mount.

There is more to it than that but all of this allows me to take multiple images on multiple nights very accurately. Multiple shots are preferred because you can increase exposure length and lower SNR (signal to noise ratio) without the danger of ruining a single long exposure, say with an airplane passing by. All the images are collected, processed for noise, further aligned with each other and added together using complex algorithms to produce a final color image. I use Maxim/DL for all of this. For this particular image I took 35 luminance images followed by 18 RGB images through filters.

I use PS for the last part of the processng - contrast, saturation, resizing, etc.

Best,

Jose

[Blake Shadle]

Your "wide angle setup" is almost as cool as the images you make with it!! Incredible image, Jose. Just wow! That's a hardcore setup :cool:

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Jose That is one amazing image ....and over three nights !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Always wanted to have a try at that type photography but never came close !!! Big Time Congrats !!!

[Fabs Forns]

I am speechless, Jose. I can't believe how great your set-up works. Wish you can post some more of this as they are fascinating. Very impressed!

[Maxis Gamez]

Wholly cr**!!!!!! This is simply amazing. Congrats!!

BTW, I was there! LOL!

[Leroy Laverman]

Very very cool shot. I tried astrophotography in high school for a while. Tracking was always the hard part. Looks like you've got that completely nailed down. Was each night a different color or do you shoot all three colors each night? Anyway looking forward to more.

[Bret Edge]

By far one of the coolest photos I've seen in recent memory. Simply outstanding, Jose!

[Vincent Grafhorst]

Unbelievable image and set-up Jose! A real eye-opener for me that one can do this in your back yard. You must have done quite a bit of studying and trying out to come to these kind of results. Thanks for sharing!

[Arthur Morris]

Hey Jose,

Amazing image; thanks for sharing. Can you purchase the whole set-up for under $100???

Later and love, artie

[Jose Suro]

Hey Jose,

Amazing image; thanks for sharing. Can you purchase the whole set-up for under $100???

Later and love, artie

LOL!! Thanks Artie. Afraid not. The camera alone with filters is more like a 600VR :).

All the best,

Jose

[Mike Dale]

Simply phenominal!!!!!!

[Michael Pancier]

amazing image. did you have to shoot it in different colors each night?

also you must be lucky to live where there are dark skies. no such luck here.

[Travis Novitsky]

That is soooooo beautiful! The colors are sublime. Thanks for sharing!

[Scott Elowitz]

Artie and Roman were correct, this is truly an amazing image and setup.