M31 Andromeda Galaxy

About M31

M31 is located in the Andromeda Constellation and as a result is called the Andromeda Galaxy . She is the Milky Way's nearest neighbour at 2.5 million light years away.

This Image

This started off as a test of my new equipment. It's been a rough couple of months in South Florida for clouds and wind, so I've been working on getting my new scope, field flattener, camera, off access guider connected with my new Ubuntu astro mini pc. This has been a callenge for a number of reasons:

1. I discovered light leaks in the off-axis guider
2. My Field flattener was generating a weird circular artifact in the flat field images.

Taking dark frames in the day time I could see really strange rectangular artifacts in the images. It took some doing but I eventually found the source of the light leaks. Some judicious use of blue tac and felt helped cover those up.
Flat frames showed a really strange circular artifact that I wasn't sure was attributable to the light leaks in the OAG and Filter Drawer. After removing the light leaks it was obvious that the artifact was still there. Eventually I sent off an email to Stellarvue explaining what I was seeing. After some review they sent me a new field flattener.

This image was the result of the final test of the equipment with the new field flattener and my McGyver'd OAG/Filter.

Equipment List

• Losmandy GM811G Mount
• Stellarvue SVX102T Telescope with Field Flattener
• PlayerOne Poseidon-C Pro Camera
• PlaterOne Xena-M Guide Camera and OAG
• Ekos/KStars on Ubuntu