M31 the Andromeda Galaxy 11th Sept 2015

M31 contains a Trillion stars.The image also contains 3,320 stars (counted by deepskystacker) which must be in our galaxy the milky way.

The image was made using my skywatcher ED80 600mm refractor with a 0.85 field flattener making the scope f6.3. Guided with Phd2 using a zwoasi120mc ccd camera through a Skywatcher ST-80 refractor.
I used Backyard EOS to focus the 40d dslr camera and take the Lights, darks, flats and Bias calibration frames. I also use BYEOS to drift align the mount.
Cartes du Ciel was used to slew and sync the scope via EQASCOM and EQMOD.
The image is made from 21 Lights@ 180seconds and 8 dark frames@iso800, plus 20 flat and 10 Bias frames. A total of 63 minutes exposure. I also used 8 seconds of mirror lockup and 15 second pause between images to allow the sensor to cool down a bit. This is probably my favourite image so far, I cant wait to take some more frames of this wonderful galaxy and bring out more detail.