I was motivated this weekend to try to find the asteroid 3200 Phaethon. But after reviewing its location, I realized it would be tough to see from my vantage point. Saturday night brought in a clear sky with calm weather, so I decided on another venture – more wide-field astrophotography!
My primary target was Pegasus, but I knew I could also capture nearby Andromeda as well as Cassiopeia. I took about 40 15-second exposures with my digital camera, followed by the customary 15-ish dark and bias frames, put them all into DeepSkyStacker, post-processed them in PaintShopPro, and the above image is the result.
There are a lot of starts in this picture, taken by pointing my tripoded camera above and a bit to the West around 8:15pm local time. In case you cannot see the constellations, here is the same image with the major shapes traced:
Also highlighted is the area of the Andromeda Galaxy. In my very light-polluted neighborhood, none of the galaxy is visible unaided, but I can see its center with my binoculars and telescope. In this picture, the center is visible as a very small spec. Keep in mind this picture was taken with my widest-possible lens setup, so details would be scarce regardless.
In Andromeda, the main guide star is Mirach. In my above images, I don’t have this star labeled, but it is the closest star that is part of the orange connection lines to the final “a” in the word Andromeda. Stellarium shows Mirach in relation to galaxy M31 as:
For comparison to my actual results, here is that section of my image zoomed in. You can see Mirach, the Andromeda Galaxy, and all the main surrounding stars as they match up to Stellarium’s database:
Next, I would like to try the same long-exposure exercise through my telescope, pointed at the Andromeda Galaxy, to determine if I can capture any detail beyond the galaxy’s center!
Since I started taking wide-field views of the sky, I put my tally of snagged constellations at 24:
- Ursa Minor
- Draco
- Leo the Lion
- Aquila
- Sagitta
- Delphinus
- Velpecula
- Lyra
- Cygnus
- Taurus
- Perseus
- Camelopardalis
- Auriga
- Cassiopeia
- Cepheus
- Scorpius
- Ophiuchus
- Virgo
- Cancer
- Leo Minor
- Lynx
- Ursa Major
- Pegasus
- Andromeda
References:
- Constellations I: Testing Ursa Minor, Snagging Draco
- Constellations II: Leo the Lion
- Constellations III: Of the Summer Triangle
- Constellations IV: Scorpius Rising
- Constellations V: Leo the Lion (Remastered)
- Constellations VI: Pegasus, Andromeda, Cassiopeia, and the Quest for the Andromeda Galaxy (this post)
- Meteor Hunting, 2017 Edition
