Our nearest galactic neighbor

I never thought I’d be able to pull this out of the soup we call urban light pollution but I did manage it.   There was significant effort put into it and I know there is much more detail that could be gathered but this is what I’ve got.  A touch over 5 hours of data collected on two nights while M31 was near zenith and well before sunrise.  Taken with the aid of Sequence Generator Pro automation software, PHD2 autoguiding, DeepSkyStacker, Nebulosity 4, and a little GIMP thrown in for good measure.  This is probably a decent way to contribute to my addiction.

 

Taken on my Celestron Advanced VX + EdgeHD 8″.  Camera is a QHY 8L running at -15C.

105 subexposures of 180 seconds

Taken from my back yard in Allen, Texas.

 

M31-2016-09-02+03-tschuh