M42 With Astronomik CLS

Orion now rises above the houses round the back of my house at about nine in the evening. Over the course of the next 6 or 7 hours, it then arcs over the lamppost the council kindly installed. So I thought tonight would be a fantastic opportunity to test my Asstronomik CLS filter which filters out wavelengths of light given out by most street lighting in urban areas. With my tripod, Astrotracs (polar alignment now sorted out), and Canon 400D with 300mm f4 Nikon lens, setup was complete by midnight, at which point I started taking 30 second exposures using DSLR Pro's time-lapse feature on my laptop. Nikon lens was openned up to max f4 and focus was a little bit back from infinity. I took 51 shots at ISO 1600, with 16 darks. I also took 18 shots at ISO 800, but I found that after stacking in DeepSkyStacker the 1600 gave noticably more detail. So this final image is from the ISO 1600 batch. Also when converting to 16bit mode in photoshop I chose to Equalise the Histogram. Did the usual series of levels and curve tweaks for each of the channels.

M31 Andromeda Galaxy with Nikon 300mm f4 Lens

After reading a terrible weather report for clear skies I happened to notice a semi-clear sky outside at around 9 O'Clock last night. So I did my normal setup with my dad's 300mm f/4 Nikon lens. I was keen to see how good the optics were. I spent ages setting up polar alignment on my astrotracs but after an hour of tests for alignment and focus and exposure, I homed in on Andromeda. I figured out how to modify my Canon 400D so I could IR remote from the warmth of my living room. Took 25 x 1 min , plus 3 x 2min, plus 1 x 3min and 6 dark frames. Set lens one stop down, f/5.6 and at hard stop infinity (you have just got to love these old lenses) and finally I stacked and processed in photoshop. Here she is. Enjoy.