M31 Andromeda and M110 untracked

This image was taken not with my telescope but with a Digital slr and a 200mm lens mounted on a tripod.

 Its made up of 347 light frames, 31 dark frames and 23 Bias frames.

Without going into too much detail, the dark and bias frames are taken with the camera lens cap on and are used to eliminate camera sensor noise and hot pixels.

With a shutter speed of 3.2 seconds @F4 it took some time as I used a remote release cable. Next time I will control the camera from inside the house with the hear on.

I processed the frames using Deep Sky Stacker( another free program) which took about 6 hours before adjusting noise and levels.

 

I was really pleased to see M110 (Andromeda's dwarf spheroidal satellite galaxy) for the first time as I cant see it with my eye through the telescope. You can see M110 below and to the right of Andromeda.

Checking the image against Stellarium I noticed M32 (a Dwarf Elliptical galaxy containing a supermassive black hole with a mass as big as 5 million Suns) another of Anromeda's satalite galaxies.

The image also shows the dust lanes which look like gaps in Andromeda's spiral arms.