Monster Galaxy

M31 - The Andromeda Galaxy

On Friday July 21st, I spent another lonely night at the CCCA Observatory in Wellandport Ontario. I started a bit late, and it was complete darkness as I made the 40 minute drive from my house.  I was delighted to see the milky way appearing as I looked out my sunroof on that cool July night.  When I got to the observatory, I instantly noticed how clear and stable the air was.  I took a few 30 second exposures on my tripod while I set up.

Milky Way at the CCCA

After setting up all of my equipment, I set my sights on Andromeda.  After a little bit of framing with some 10 second exposures, I let Canon EOS Utilities take over and set it to take (75) 240 Second Exposures at ISO 1600.  My PHD graph was looking great so I knew I was in for some great data.  Because I had  almost 3 hours of great frames, and I was under dark skies, processing was very straight forward and a pleasure to perform.

Here are the details for the above photo of M31

51 x 240" ISO 1600

Stacked with 16 darks

ES ED80 Triplet Apo

ASCG-5 GT

Orion Mini Guidescope

Meade DSI II

Canon 450d unmodded

Stacked in DSS

As you may or may not have noticed, I have updated the photo gallery of this website.  I wanted to include more details of how I shot each object, in hopes to give some direction to aspiring astrophotographers.  It is still a work in progress, but I plan on having it finished by the end of the month.