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Community photo entitled M31 - The Andromeda Galaxy in HaLRGB by George Tzellos on 09/08/2024 at Mesogeia,Greece

M31 - The Andromeda Galaxy in HaLRGB

On 09/08/2024 05:06 am by George Tzellos | Website | Mesogeia,Greece

I captured this image of the great Andromeda Galaxy during September 2024 as this target was high enough to be photographed from my location.
I live under Bortle6/7 skies and I have always found a bit difficult to bring out vibrant colors in deepsky objects when captured in 'true color RGB'. I've made several re-attempts to bring out as much detail as possible in the Andromeda galaxy as the blue color in outer spiral arms is often muted from light pollution. This is the best result I have gotten so far. The total integration for this image is about 14 hours.

Telescope: William OpticsZenithStar 61 / ZS61
Camera: ZWOASI533MM Pro
Mount: Pegasus AstroNYX-88 Harmonic Gear Mount
Filters: Antlia LRGB V-Series Pro & Antlia EDGE H-alpha 4.5nm
Accessories: ZWOEFW mini (5 x 1.25″ / 5 x 31mm)
Software: CCDstack2, N.I.N.A, Siril, GIMP, PhD2, RawTherapee

Individual masters for L,R,G and B filters stacked in CCDStack2
RGB Combination in CCDStack2
RGB processing in Siril (Background extraction,PCC,Stretching)
L processing in Siril (Background extraction, Deconvolution, Stretching)
Ha processed in Siril (Background extraction, Remove Stars, Stretching)
HaRGB combination in Siril with Pixel Math Continuum Subtraction formulas
L-HaRGB combination and color re-calibration in GIMP
Final touches in RawTherapee