Telescope Reviews: First image post - M31, The Great Andromeda Galaxy

Hi

Its been a while since I've seen M31 but I may be able to help.
M31 was high in the sky when I first began imaging in November last year. This is i think the 4th image I ever took:

Its not a great image, but since its been below the horizon now, i've learned alot! In that learning process, i learned the subs are King among other things. A single long exposure for the lanes is really going to cull your ability to take a great shot. See if you can get 20 for each long exposure series as well as the shorts....as many as possible is good. Getting and implimenting dark frames will help as well.

I get that red tint in areas of light pollution..especially comes out with processing.....do you have much at your location??...I suspect that you took this image when M31 was fairly low on the horizon. Waiting till M31 is at least 40° up seems to be the magic number at my location for getting minimal haze from LP near the horizon.
Also, using a lower ISO with longer exposures might be helpful if your tracking can handle it. I find that doing a normal polar alignment and GoTo alignment, then utilizing my mounts polar alignment procedure helps alot...does your mount have this?.....after I polar align with my polar alignment scope, I do a normal goto align on 2 stars and 2 calibration stars...then I use the mount polar alignment feature and the scope slews to where polaris "should be"...i then look in my EP and see if polaris is centered. I then use my mounts adjustments to align polaris...DO NOT use the direction arrows on hand controller to align it here. After centering I then have to re-do the goto alignment procedure but now its basing this on a pretty accurate polar alignment so tracking should be MUCH easier now for guiding. Corrections will normally be for mostly periodic error. If I just do a 2 star alignment without the polar align feature, sometimes I make the guiding do alot of work.

After getting all this

, I use this type of processing with my short and long subs...it works great!
http://www.astropix.com/PFA/SAMPLE4A/SAMPLE4A.HTM

One last note....i see some distortion on the left top area of the image. Make sure the optical train is VERY secure but even if its secure, if the optical train is not straight, you may get this distortion. What I mean is, lets say we're using a T-Adaptor attached to the focuser. If the t-adaptor isn't absolutely flush with the adaptor to the focuser, it may "hang" especially with the weight of the camera which means the light hitting the top of the CDD will be focused ever so slightly different than the bottom, so I take my cam off, attach t-adaptor to the focuser adaptor and make sure they are very flush and secure so sagging of any of the componants:

Good luck and have fun!

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Orion 80mm ED Apo Refractor
8" Classic Dob (used as Newtonian on CG5 mount)
Meade 70-AZ-A 70mm Guider using PHD
LS60TCaK/B600/C
CG-5 Advanced GT Mount
Nikon D40x with T-Adaptors
Philips SPC900NC
Imaging Source DMK 21AU04.AS
Dome=the box my mount came in so I can see my solar images in bright sun lol

- click for cloud prediction for Plymouth, MA. area