M31 - The Andromeda Galaxy

Our nearest neighbour at 2 million lightyears away and closing! Visible with the naked eye it is probably best seen through binoculars. It covers a large area of sky and having been so used to looking at images of M31 it always surprises me how far away the companion galaxies of M110 and M32 appear from the core when viewed through a scope. The outer nebulosity is very extensive and dim. This image is was captured on a good night at the Kelling Heath Autumn Starparty.

Scope: Skywatcher ED80 with William Optics 0.8 reducer/flattener.

Camera: QHY8 unfiltered.

Exposure details: 8x400 and 20x600 seconds.

Caputred and combined in Maxim and processed in Photoshop.

The image is somewhat cropped, removing elongated stars resulting from poor field flatness. Even with the spacing set perfectly I have been unable to achieve a flat field with this imaging combination.