M31 and M33 again

Revisited the sky last night after a period of inactivity due to rain, snow, clouds, and/or cold. It was nice to be outside again. Tried to get M31 and M33 in the same shot.

Because I was unable to see my two main targets, I was unable to properly frame the shot. I kept Mirach centered, but I managed a landscape orientation rather than a portrait. And there were a greater amount of high-elevation clouds than I was able to detect with my eyes. In spite of these issues, I am still reasonably happy with this effort.

The StarLink satellites were another unwelcomed addition, like the clouds. I think they add to the overall image, however. I am not sure what the sky is going to look like with 12,000 of those things up there, or even the 30,000 to 42,000 that Musk ultimately wants to deploy!

Nikon D5300, 50mm f/1.8 at f/2.5, ISO 640, 200 exposures at 6 seconds each (20 mins total), stacked in Sequator (it left the StarLink satellites in and produced the best overall color results) and stretched in The GIMP.

Oh! I just saw that I never posted this beauty here.

This is the result of gathering up all of the 50mm images I have taken this year of M31, no matter the camera or settings, and stacking them in Astro Pixel Processor. This took days to complete, and then I saw that I had accidentally added in my then recent M33 session, as well! It was this happy accident that inspired me to try to capture M31 and M33 in the same frame. I found further inspiration for this shot from a nameless person on one of the Facebook astrophotography groups. Here is his shot, which was done with a tracker.

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