M31 mosaic from Okie-Tex

This is a mosaic of 15 images 8O of M31 taken at the 2007 Okie-Tex starparty this past October. This was done with a 10" f4.5 Newtonian with a new tube assembly I made for it. SBIG ST-2000XM CCD camera Binned 2x2, 20/20/15/20 minute LRGB on each section for a total of more than 18 hours exposure time, including redo shots. 85% of the images were done at Okie-Tex, the rest were done at the Denver Astronomical Society's EGK dark sky site near Deer Trail, CO. An earlier less saturated image of the core was stacked-on for more detail. Processed in SB CCD Soft, Photoshop with FITS Liberator and Astronomy tools plug-ins. SB TheSky 6 provided the mosaic map for this project. Enjoy! Joe.

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Wow, that is very nice. Is this a full frame of the ST2000 or is there a mosaic that includes more than one frame?

Great stuff Joe! Well done! 8)
Lots of detail captured!


Thank you for sharing!

Hi Joe,

[SIZE="Large"][COLOR="Blue"]The image is beautiful. Some tips on your mosaic skills would be very much appreciated. [/COLOR][/SIZE]

8)
I do think considering the amount of exposure time involved in this image it might be worth the time to revisit it in photoshop. I am sure there is more data here. I am also sure that processing a mosaic introduces some interesting problems matching levels of the individual images making it quite a challenge. Looking forward to mosaic myself however I can not say this from experience.

Was the Lum channel also binned?

Regardless "your work is inspiring"

John [SIZE="Small"]AKA[/SIZE] halleys_trauma

Joe,

This is spectacular! An image worthy of the effort you put into it! Great job!

Eric

Hi Joe,
I'm not an expert, but with all the data collected I would expect more. My suggestion is to try to increase the contrast, at the cost of burning the core a little, to bring out the detail of the spiral arms. I believe that all the data for a very good image is in your possession. It just would benefit from a more aggressive and targeted processing.
I hope you don't mind, but I tweaked your image a bit. Being a jpg it was difficult for me to squeeze much more, but you can do a lot with the original shot. I just applied a few runs of curves and a little saturation in PS. I hope you like it.

Ciao Joe

Luca

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