On 23 November 2017 I set out to capture M31 (Andromeda Galaxy) using my latest rig.
Here's a photo of the rig... It consists of a SkyWatcher Star Adventurer tracking mount head on a SkyWatcher wedge, supported by a Velbon tripod. The scope is an 80mm Orion short-tube (f/5) 400mm focal length which I'd gotten as a guide scope for the 12" LX-200.
The camera shown is a Canon 5D Mark II, however I really only used that camera to course-aim the scope. For imaging, I used a QHY5III174 Monochrome camera... For that camera, I used an Orion extender tube to enable focusing.
Here's a processed image from the evening...
To get to this image, I first captured a 120 second exposure with the QHY, controlled as an ASCOM camera with TheSkyX. The program saves images in FIT format... To further process I used FITS Liberator to re-save as a TIF file (both as Windows applications in Parallels), then worked levels and histogram scaling with PixInsight (Mac Version). I also used PixInsight to export the images to PNG format for sharing.
Out of curiosity, I examined the image to see what objects I could identify... Below are a few Globular Clusters orbiting M31 which can be found on the image. I used Sky Safari to identify those, and marked them up on the exported PNG image using the MacOS Preview editor function.
Waiting for another clear night (probably following the full moon) for another deep-sky imaging night.
Mark J.
