Astrophotography: Andromeda

When I first became interested in astrophography, Andromeda was my very first target.  I had a camera and a scope, but I did not have the means to track objects.  So I was taking very short exposures.  So while my picture did not turn out very well, it was what got me hooked.  For the first time I realized the power of camera to see things we cannot see with the naked eye.  Cameras have the power to collect light and save all that data.  I made up my mind that night to get better.

So just the other night I looked up and saw the constellation Cassiopeia.  Cassiopeia points right to the Andromeda galaxy.   Winter is coming and so this galaxy is back in a perfect place in the sky for imaging.

As for Andromeda, it is a beautiful galaxy.  It is the closest major galaxy to our own Milky Way Galaxy.  Andromeda is huge as it spans 220,000 light years. In the telescope, it is actually bigger than the moon.  Charles Messier put Andromeda in his catalog as M31 in 1764.  However Andromeda was noticed in the night sky as early as 964 by the Persians.

The craziest fact is the Milky Way and Andromeda are on a collision course.  However don't worry.  It will be 4.5 billion years before that merger happens.

Here was my second attempt to image this galaxy.  The setup was:

Stellarvue SV90T scope
Celestron AVX mount
Nikon D90 camera
90 images at 90 second exposures; 800 ISO
40 darks
40 bias
30 flat