As summer turns to autumn, one of the jewels of the northern skies moves directly overhead in the evening hours, making it the perfect target. The great galaxy in Andromeda almost fills the entire frame at 400mm with the Tamron lens and the D5500’S crop sensor.

With polar alignment issues keeping sub-exposures down to just 30 seconds, my hopes weren’t too high for a good image. But after stacking and editing, I have to admit I was extremely happy with the final result. With just 1 hour of integration time, I hadn’t expected to record this level of detail. I suspect the position of the galaxy at zenith helped to negate much of the issues with light pollution.

Although not quite up to Hubble’s best, it’s still a huge leap in detail over my past attempt with the 180mm lens.