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Andromea Galaxy

O

olyinaz

Guest



M31, 2.4 million light years distant, and commonly known as "the" Andromeda Galaxy with the other Andromeda galaxies M32 below and M110 just above - all three gravitationally bound.

Several G1 images combined in PhotoAcute for noise reduction. Most were approx 40 seconds and 320iso.

Cheers,
Oly
 

peterv

New member
Thanks for posting these beautiful images. Eyecandy!
Makes me proud to be a G1 owner.
Cheers, Peter
 

peterb

Member
Unreal. I never used to see these images as 'individual' stars. Just blobby white masses with stars at the edges. Very cool. Thanks for sharing.

Peter
 

scott kirkpatrick

Well-known member
Re: Andromeda Galaxy

That's incredible resolution in dynamic range. What is the spread in magnitude (or in stops of exposure) between the faintest objects we can see and the brightest? And is PhotoAcute only for technical stuff or can it be used to mosaic and up the resolution of, say, landscape pictures?

scott
 
O

olyinaz

Guest
Thanks guys! I'm just getting going on this so hopefully the output will get better over time.

Scott: I don't know the answer to your question but since these were taken at a higher iso setting and with long exposures I'm not sure how impressive the dynamic range is or isn't. What I do know is that they're swamped pretty badly with noise! They're also pretty dark the way they come out so most of the processing is an effort to lift the faint glow of the galaxies or nebulae in levels and curves whilst struggline to tamp down light pollution noise and signal noise. When I finally get set up with a guiding CCD for my spotter scope and perhaps even a better mount setup (that's a big maybe - I'm running out of funds...) I'll be able to expose for longer durations (50 seconds seems to be my max right now) which should help in this regard. It'll be interesting to compare 1 minute 400iso and 4 minute 100iso exposures for noise.

PhotoAcute isn't really astro software at all. It just so happens that it's the only "stacking" software that I currently know how to use so that's why I'm using it. As far as I know it's mostly used for focus stacking and noise reduction through stacking but it also has an HDR function. I've used it in the past with good results on macro subjects. Here is a cocoon imaged with a Schneider-Kreuznach Xenon 50mm lens on my E-3. Even at f/11 the DOF was such that maybe one quarter of the cocoon was in focus but I used (if I recall) five images stacked in PhotoAcute to reasonably bring the whole thing into focus:




At any rate, I need to learn some proper astro software but I'm having a hard time getting motivated to do that. :eek:

Cheers,
Oly
 
O

olyinaz

Guest
I can't see how they can ignore the G1 but I suppose a lot falls upon people like us shooting them an email and asking for profiles. I intend to do just that.

Best,
Oly
 
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