Thanks for this video. Your earlier videos guided me as I took my first shot of a deep sky object - yes, M31. The most remarkable thing to me about any photo of M31 is that the Andromeda Galaxy is about 200,000 light years across. Because we see it on edge, an image records 200,000 years of history: light from the "far" edge of the galaxy began its journey to us that much earlier than light from the "near" edge. This always blows my mind.

@kamilkp

3 жыл бұрын

I haven’t thought about it like this before - it really is mindboggling! Thanks for the comment and good luck with your next shots!

Thanks for making this video. I’ve been trying to photograph Andromeda without a tracker, but I did the same steps you took: take a test picture with high ISO, and then frame it. Thanks again! Gus

@LostFleet

3 жыл бұрын

SGT OG I dont have a tracker either, how do you shoot without one?

Nicely done. Can't wait to try my hand at it.

I went out last night and got the andromeda milkyway and was wowed. I have a star tracker and tracked for 5 mins at f/8 Iso 800 at 540mm focal length and framed it up perfectly, the problem is if you have never done this is finding it, but once you have it is definetly a wow moment.

@kamilkp

3 жыл бұрын

Absolutely. I was first stunned when I saw it on a test photo at 70mm - I didn’t expect it to be this prominent! Then I shot mine with merely 300mm so yours with 540mm must’ve looked incredible on the back of the camera! Well done 👏

@ironian24

3 жыл бұрын

@@kamilkp yes I was a little speechless when I saw it on the back screen nearly filling the frame, a bit soft though to be honest so I am going to try again tonight as there are clear skies again here in Norfolk.

@kamilkp

3 жыл бұрын

Clear skies and good luck!!

thanks for sharing your process, 👍

Fantastic for Andrmeda season Thanks

Thanks for ur information! ❤️

This is awesome.. will be going out this weekend to get this myself...

@kamilkp

3 жыл бұрын

Try it you won’t regret! It’s something magical about the experience of doing it yourself - one can really feel how small we are given the vastness of the Universe. I love the part of the night where my camera and tracker is all set up and I can just sit on my camping chair and stare at the sky - make sure to take a moment to appreciate that part of the process as well - clear skies and good luck! 😊

Twoje filmy są fantastyczne! Dziękuję bardzo za poradnictwo koleś...

I had my first session yesterday with my new Star Adventurer. And my first time ever using photoshop. Lots of work to do but I like it so far! I was only able to find live view stars when I increased ISO to the max. But I was able to focus finally.

Thank you very helpful. Love the part on how to find Andromeda. Felt Luke Google Maps in the sky!!

@kamilkp

3 жыл бұрын

Thanks Icog! Yeah, Stellarium is pretty awesome - you can even zoom in like crazy on planets and stuff and see very detailed images of them. Try to simulate a lunar eclipse there 🌒 - it’s pretty incredible! Thanks for the comment 😊

Thank you for such a wonderfully informative video. I am just getting into astrophotography and this is excellent information. I live in the northeast portion of the US, now too much farther south than Krakow, so much of what you see is similar to what is visible here. I have the Sky Adventurer, so this makes your information invaluable. We have had terrible weather, and I am anxious to get out to try Andromeda!

Amazing.. Are you thinking to post something related of how to post process the Andromeda galaxy? Maybe the photoshop part?

@kamilkp

3 жыл бұрын

Thanks 😊 - yes I will be posting something like this but I’m unsure when exactly just yet - stay tuned!

Great tips buddy. I love the hard work you put in your videos. Your videos are pure. Keep it up, also, congrats for posting straight for a year. My fiancee gets mad that I'm out all night shooting or stargazing and goes to bed mad. Hahaha!

@kamilkp

3 жыл бұрын

Yep, I know the situation very well from my own experience 😀 that’s what’s so great about astrophotography - the sky will always be there waiting for when you have time, unlike futile sunsets etc. Well maybe apart from comets that just fly away for good. Thanks for the comment, I appreciate that! 😊

Incredible work Kamil. I'm just getting started in astrophotography and have watched a bunch of your videos. You do a great job explaining the details. Very professional. I've subscribed and look forward to your future efforts. I know they will help me improve. Cheers from California.

@kamilkp

3 жыл бұрын

Thanks Gary, that means a lot 😊

This helped immensely! I really struggled the night before getting Andromeda in frame. Last night I did it first time using the star hop route you suggested (I was trying from Cassiopeia previously). Keep sharing these tips. :)

@kamilkp

3 жыл бұрын

Thanks! I’m glad it worked out for you. Using this method I can spot it in the sky anytime I just casually look up in this direction 😀

Thank you. Very useful video!!

@kamilkp

3 жыл бұрын

Glad you liked it 😊

Great video. Really appreciate the effort you put in.

@kamilkp

3 жыл бұрын

I’m glad you do. Thanks for the comment!

Very helpful. I'm currently on the Andromeda mission as well and this definitely helps! :) One small suggestion: for example when you start to show Stellarium and explain, there's no need to keep switching the camera back to yourself. You can keep showing Stellarium and explain in the background. It breaks the flow of the video a lot - hard to explain.

@kamilkp

3 жыл бұрын

Duly noted. However I find it weird to keep the screen recording on, when I’m not actively doing anything on the computer but digressing instead. I will try to digress less 😉 Thanks for the comment, I’m glad you found it helpful overall!

Great video.

@kamilkp

3 жыл бұрын

Thanks Steve!

Greetings from California (United States). This is the exact video that I needed. I am chasing the Andromeda Galaxy as well and have that same lens. I have a Canon EOS R, but I am going to be using a Canon 60D to take advantage of the crop sensor magnification. Great job on the video.

@kamilkp

3 жыл бұрын

Thanks, I’m glad you found it helpful!

Thanks ! 👍😉

A brilliantly well explained video, I know how much work goes into these videos and editing I have a channel too, your channel is brilliant and I really enjoy the way you explain stuff, this video is brilliant, I plan to try and get this andromeda M31 myself.

@kamilkp

3 жыл бұрын

Thank you! It’s awesome to hear that the effort I put into those videos gets appreciated 😊

Good stuff man, I tried to do this at 50mm in a Bortle 8 a few months ago. did not go well. will try again under better conditions.

@kamilkp

3 жыл бұрын

I would try at Bortle 6 at least. Good luck next time and clear skies! Thanks for the comment 😊

Excellent instruction, thanks. I'll be going out this weekend to photograph M31 for the first time (300mm lens, Star Adventurer). One thing you didn't mention in the video was how many images you took of M31 for the stack? Thanks again.

@kamilkp

3 жыл бұрын

Clear skies and good luck! For this shot I had exactly 63 frames in the stack

This is my try with andromeda with 18-55 kit lense from my backyard. I live in fairly light polluted area. This was made without star tracker and 123 light frames and 25 dark frames. I know I screwed up something in photoshop while trying to remove stars(thats why they look so weird) but I'm quite happy with how this image of andromeda turned out. Here it is imgur.com/a/ICL4vio

@kamilkp

3 жыл бұрын

Not bad for a kit lens and no tracker! You gotta start somewhere right? 😉 good luck next time and stay tuned - there will be some astro photoshop tutorials coming to the channel soon!

@tidymetal1

3 жыл бұрын

@@kamilkp thanks, I'm buying skywatcher star adventurer in like a week or two. Then I can use my 70-300 lense :)

@beautyinpeace

3 жыл бұрын

They look really good. 👍🏽

I loved this video and M31 is my favourite deep sky object and it's so famous with Astronomers and astrophotographers and it's always been one of the most photographed objects in northern hemisphere alongside M42 in Orion. M31 is about 2.5 million light years from earth and Hubble space telescope was used to predict when M31 would collide with our milky way galaxy in about 3 billion years from now. Few years ago I wanted to see if Samsung S7 smartphone would photograph M31 just on normal tripod under Bortle 6 skies so I waited when it was high up and took shot I was expecting nothing to show up and then I looked at shot and OMG M31 was there as a faint small blob I thought it's amazing a phone camera can photograph it. Last year I tried Hauwei p20 smartphone in magnifficent Glencoe last October and yep just on tripod and it was there slightly better than s7. Even in bortle 6 skies you can photograph M31 with a phone on normal tripod! I should try and get M33 with Hauwei p20 smartphone! M31 is so easy to locate and it's was Edwin Hubble who discovered M31 was actually a galaxy and not a nebula. Did you know you can photograph M31 with a pair of binoculars and a phone? M31 is the largest galaxy in our local group of galaxies and our local group is on the outskirts of a much larger group of galaxies known as the Virgo supercluster and Virgo supercluster of galaxies isn't the largest. Your shot of M31 is fantastic and you know how it's done!

@kamilkp

3 жыл бұрын

Thanks for the comment! I love reading your comments - you always provide some interesting piece of information and I envy those Scottish skies - one day I will visit for sure! M31 is my absolute favourite as well and I know that Hubble discovered it. In fact this discovery led to the groundbreaking discovery of Dark Energy and the fact that the Universe is expanding - mindblowing stuff!

@bushcraftandastronomer.3775

3 жыл бұрын

@@kamilkp I believe the universe came from the unknown dark matter and dark energy which is every where and dark energy is the reason the universe is expanding faster than we think. The universe we live in sits in the so called Multiverse where other universes are and scientists like Michio Kaku believes in the multiverse and the multiverse is never ending and universes are being created every second. M31 is the most distant object in the night sky you can see with your eyes. Our universe could be far larger than we can see and there are galaxies moving away from us faster than the speed of light. There is also the big rip that could happen if universe expands faster and faster than the universe could be ripped apart known as the big rip where clusters of galaxies and supercluster clusters get ripped apart and stars planets also get ripped apart and the whole universe is ripped apart that could happen and it's scary end to our universe! Or the universe could die in a big freeze.

Imaging m31 is a dream of mine as well, but sadly, some dreams are a bit costly, especially in the 3rd world. Nonetheless, thank you for your video, I shall be back here once I have saved up the funds for this.

Hello. Thanks for the great tutorial. I’m curious how long each exposure was. I saw your response elsewhere that it about 60 images stacked, but I’m curious of the duration of each image, so I can calculate the total integration time. I’m thinking of getting auto-guiding, so I believe I may be able to take longer exposures, requiring fewer images to stack, but I suppose I also increase the risk of each exposure being ruined due to wind. So, (1) how long was each exposure, and (2) any thought on auto-guiding, including the risk of longer exposures vs stacking good shorter exposures. Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

@kamilkp

3 жыл бұрын

Thanks! I think autoguiding is a great idea. I myself advanced to shoot guided since I made this video, but yes you need to find the right balance between the length of each exposure given current wind conditions. Luckily in PHD2 you can monitor the deviation in real time and if it goes too high you can decrease the exposure time. As to the acquisition details, check out this image on my astrobin.com profile (I have a way better processed version there but it’s from the same data)

do you think it would be possible without star tracker

Pozdro z Ojcowa. moze kiedys sie umowim na nocna sesyjke

Did you use any polar scope to align?

@kamilkp

3 жыл бұрын

Just the one built-in into the Star Adventurer tracker

Hey brother i just bought all my astrophotography gear and making my first trip out end of the month... been binge watching your content, great stuff. Like you mention at the end of the vid, it’s a good option to take your 100 exposures and stack them (call it session A), but then maybe next trip out take another 100 (session B) and add it to the first batch to get an even less noisy final master stacked image. Are you taking all the saved images from session A + session B and then going thru the process of stacking 200 images? Or are you taking the final stacked image from session A, and adding that to the 100 images from session B... essentially stacking 101 photos? I’m not sure how you are saving your settings from session A processing step and applying it to session B processing step. Could you make a brief video about that if you get a chance? Sorry if it’s too beginner of a question.

@kamilkp

3 жыл бұрын

I actually haven’t done this myself yet but from what I understand you just need to match the camera settings, focus, focal length and framing roughly and the stacking software will take care of the rest: align it etc. I’m gonna need to do more research myself though as to whether you should stack all sources from scratch or not becase for instance the flat calibration frames should be taken at the EXACT same focus as light frames to be effective. I’ll make a vid once I’ve experimented with it myself :)

Have you got any stacker tutorials?

@kamilkp

3 жыл бұрын

Not yet but I’m planning to. This new Siril app is pretty amazing for stacking, preprocessing and even post processing

@Lunarplex

3 жыл бұрын

@@kamilkp oh thanks! I’ll try that out. I have a skystacker app though. I have seen a couple of tutorials but they get a bit confusing and long winded. A quick, simple tutorial would be very welcome.

Hi Kamil, another great video, thanks!! Would you be able to clarify something for me please as I am new to this discipline of photography. I have a Star Adventurer tracker, and aligning it to Polaris is tricky at the moment - I know where it is in the sky but lose it in the polariscope. I've seen videos the recommend going out at twilight and aligning it then, as there are fewer stars in the sky, which should make it easier when looking through the polariscope. My question is, when I have it aligned do I switch the tracker on, even if the subject, eg the Milky Way isn't visible for a few hours? If not, then I would have to realign the tracker when the MW does become visible, therefore it would be a waste of time doing it at twilight. Hope this makes sense. Thanks Michael.

@kamilkp

2 жыл бұрын

It does’t have to be tracking. It shouldn’t drift away. If it drifts then it means that your PA (polar alignment) is not accurate enough

@michaelmcmullan8039

2 жыл бұрын

@@kamilkp Thank you for replying. I'm still a little confused though. If I polar align at say 2200hrs but I won't be shooting until 0300hrs, will Polaris not have moved and therefore need to be realigned within the reticle?

@kamilkp

2 жыл бұрын

Polaris orbits around the NCP and thus will move around the „clock” inside the reticle. However if you check where it should be at 3:00 you will find it exactly there if you’ve perfectly polar aligned at 22:00. Does that make sense?

@michaelmcmullan8039

2 жыл бұрын

@@kamilkp thanks Kamil, that makes perfect sense! Thank you very much for your advice.

Hey, I don't know if you mentioned in the video, but were you at 300mm F5.6?

@kamilkp

10 ай бұрын

Yep

Hello, what do you think of using an equatorial mount like SW EQM-35 with my Sony A7iii and its 100-400 instead the SW Star Adventurer? I am considering buying it with the prospect of purchasing a telescope in the future and so, for the time being, I’d use the EQ with my mirrorless. Thanks

@kamilkp

3 жыл бұрын

Sure why not! EQM-35 looks great - it can be used as a GOTO which would definitely make your life easier! Just make sure you have all the adapters to go from a 1/4” tripod screw on the Sony to the dovetail on the mount

@fabriziocanale9768

3 жыл бұрын

@@kamilkp ok, thanks for replying. Keep up the good work! Your videos are very useful.

Great video! I am following your tips and capturing M31 as we speak. Did you use any calibration frames to postprocess your photo? Also, I am using a star adventurer and I see that anything beyond a 30s exposure, I am getting blur. Is bad polar alignment the reason ?

@kamilkp

2 жыл бұрын

Either that or the mount is not balanced, or it’s windy. There are many possible points of failure. For that image I took also lights and darks but you should totally also get flats and biases

@DeveshPande

2 жыл бұрын

@@kamilkp Right. I have a really bad tripod. I just ordered the star adventurer tripod and hope that's sturdy enough. With my exposure times, how many light frames should I capture ?

@kamilkp

2 жыл бұрын

Just integrate for as long as you can. The longer the better - always :) a few hours would be great but as you may have seen from my most recent video, even 32 mins can get you a cool result 😀

@DeveshPande

2 жыл бұрын

@@kamilkp Haha! Right. I have about 60 frames and each frame is 100s exposure. I fixed the polar alignment. However my battery died before I could get the set 100 images. I couldn't capture calibration frames even. Hope it doesn't hurt much.

Do you take any Flat Frames or Dark Frames to help you in processing?

@kamilkp

3 жыл бұрын

For that one I took only lights and darks.

I have Never seen Andromeda Galaxy..because My City is Very Light Polluted also Its Tricky To Find Without any Stars Giving Proximity unlike The Orion Nebula !!!

Very cool! I just recently took my first photo of M31 (i.imgur.com/naJzG5z.jpg) with a 200mm and a Canon T2i with my Skyguider Pro. I wasn't dithering, so I was battling some 'walking noise', but now I've started to manually dither my images (every 3 frames I manually move both axis slightly) and it works wonders.

@kamilkp

3 жыл бұрын

Thanks for the comment and good job - your shot looks dope too!! I was not dithering either but I’m gonna try next time and see what difference does it really make. You just gave me an idea for another video - thanks 😉

@itaialter

3 жыл бұрын

@@kamilkp Thanks, me and my brother drove 45min to a bortle 4 site. Will be looking forward for your experiences with manual/auto dithering.

@1pcmedic

3 жыл бұрын

My summer cabin is in a Bortle 2, I will be taking some Andromeda pics with my skytracker pro. How many images did you stack to get the one in the link? What were your settings I will be using a 250mm on a crop sensor Canon XSi. www.flickr.com/photos/66741282@N04/50250829171/in/dateposted-public/ , www.flickr.com/photos/66741282@N04/50246806361/in/dateposted-public/ , www.flickr.com/photos/66741282@N04/50142291973/in/dateposted-public/

@tidymetal1

3 жыл бұрын

What F did you use? Really nice pic tho.