Andromeda Galaxy (M31)

The Andromeda Galaxy (M31) is a spiral galaxy 2.5 million light-years away from Earth.
It is the nearest major galaxy to the Milky Way.It received its name from the area of the sky in which it appears, the constellation of Andromeda, which was named after the mythological princess Andromeda.

Andromeda is approximately 220,000 light years across, and it is the largest galaxy of the Local Group, which also contains the Milky Way, the Triangulum Galaxy, and other smaller galaxies. Andromeda contains one trillion stars at least twice the number of stars in the Milky Way, which is estimated to be 200–400 billion. The mass of the Andromeda Galaxy is estimated to be 1.5×10^12 solar masses, while the Milky Way is estimated to be 8.5×10^11 solar masses.

The Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies are expected to collide in 4.5 billion years, eventually merging to form a giant elliptical galaxy or perhaps a large disc galaxy.(dixit Wikipedia)

To take this photo i used the following setup:
Scope: TS Optics ts 80/352 astroimaging
Mount: AZEQ6
Camera: Atik One 6.0

The total exposure is around 4.5 hours in september 2016. As my camera is black & white i use RGB filters to build the chrominance layer, and stack several photo on each filter to maximize signal over noise.

38 photos of 5 min flitering Luminance except UV
8 photos of 5 min filtering Red
5 photos of 5 min filtering Blue
4 photos of 5 min filtering Green

I used the software Prism 10 to manage the capture, the pre-treatment (Removing offset, dark and flat). The stacking and the post-treatment was done with Pixinsight and at the end Photoshop.

Technical detail of the photo here: https://www.astrobin.com/263546/

If you want more information, ask me in comment !

I hope you enjoyed it! If it is the case, resteem and follow me to see more astrophotography.