Fall is when we see a LOT of pictures of M31 - Andromeda Galaxy circulating around the internet. That's because it's a fantastic beginner object to capture: It's bright, it's HUGE, and high in the sky in the northern hemisphere. To capture M31 on my rig.. there are a few technical challenges. The main one being my scopes focal length of 840mm means it would only capture a small segment of M31. The Starizona Apex-L 0.65x reducer helps with this greatly. It brings down the focal length (zooms out) to 546mm and it also reduced the aperture from f/7 down to f/4.55.. which means, much more light going in the scope. It's a fantastic piece of hardware, and provides a totally flat field when used correctly: Starizona Apex-L
However, even at 546mm, this monstrous galaxy is still too big to capture in the field of view. So I have to resort to Mosaics, essentially capturing 3 shots and stitching them together via software. I do like this method, because you end up with a really high-res image and much better quality in the end.
Here's a small, very minimally processed preview of the first frame.. and just waiting on weather improvements to capture the rest.
