Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

Hi kpmac
Thanks for checking out the image of M31 and for the comment.

Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

Hi rmorrison1116
Thanks for checking out he picture of M31 and for the comment.

RustyM

Thanks, Ballard.

Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

Hi Trix
Thanks for checking out the image of Andromeda and for the comment and question.
Here is a list of the equipment used
Camera ZWO - ASI6200MM Pro USB 3.0 Cooled Monochrome Camera
Filter wheel ZWO - 7 position filter wheel Used homemade adapter to attach it to the Canon lens.
Filters used Astrodon - Luminance, Red, Green and blue filters.
Lens Canon Super telephoto 125mm diameter, FL- 500mm F 4.0 lens
Guide scope Explore Scientific APO 127mm diameter FL-950mm F 7.5 .
guide camera Starlight express lodestar X2.
Mount Astro Physics 1600GTO with parallel scope mount to hold the Cannon lens and APO guide scope

Exposures where all where taken at -5C
~20 exposures at 4 minutes each for Red, Green and Blue
12 exposures at 5 minutes, 20 exposures at 4 minutes and 20 exposures at 2 minutes each for Luminance.
*The luminance times where a bit of an error as I had miss configured Sequence generator Pro and for got to set it up to change filters. Unintentional HDR.

10 dark frames for each time to create the master dark frame for each time (all at -5C)
30 Flat frames for each filter times used to create the respective master flat frames.
30 Bias frames used to create the master Bias frame.

Software used
Sequence Generator Pro (SG-Pro) Used to take the photo sequence and handle, meridian flip, Plate solving,
drizzel, etc.)
Note: I had to focus by hand with the cannon lens as the telescope focuser I use on my
other scope could not be used on this lens (very limited back focus).
PHD to handle guiding camera and send appropriate control signals to the mount (controlled by SG-Pro)
SKY-X - used to initially point the scope/Cannon Lens to the target
ASI studio - used to initially connect and focus the camera after SKY-X had pointed scope/Cannon Lens

This software was all run on a 64bit ThinkPad laptop running windows 10 pro. Once focus was done the user interface on the ThinkPad was remoted to my Main Desktop computer to control everything from my office.

Image Processing software used
Pixinsight - for stacking, noise reduction, stretching, Initial color curve settings, etc.
Digital Photo Professional and Picture window For Minor corrections and cropping and image compression

Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

Hi Phil67
Thanks for checking out the image and for the comment. (enjoy the image.).

Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

Hi joecichjr
Thanks for checking out the image of Andromeda and for the comment.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Wow! What a huge inventory of HW/SW and expertise to capture this great image. Thank you for the details!

Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

You are very welcome.

J-SPEIGHT Loc: Akron, Ohio

Outstanding images

ecobin Loc: Paoli, PA

Wow - that's quite a bit of expertise you have!
Super result!

Tony R Loc: Westport, CT

Amazing! Makes one feel pretty insignificant.....

jimvanells Loc: Augusta, GA

Absolutely beautiful image! Great work

Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

Hi J-SPEIGHT
Thanks for checking out the image of Andromeda with the new camera and for the comment.

Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

Hi ecobin
Thanks for viewing my photo of Andromeda with the new camera and for the comment. I have been learning a lot on how to process these images and having fun in the process.

Ballard Loc: Grass Valley, California

Hi Tony R
Thanks for checking out the view of Andromeda and for the comment. Indeed Andromeda has over 1 trillion stars a couple of times bigger than the milky way) and is just one of perhaps a trillion or more galaxies in the visible universe.