With a name like that, I couldn’t pass up capturing M13. It was a little low in the sky at first, but since it’s so bright, the background wasn’t a problem. I took almost 5 hours of 130 second exposures on it. Continue Reading... "The Great Globular Cluster in Hercules"
A full moon limited my targets for the night, so I went with an easy target, the globular cluster M53. I was trying new software, NINA, and I was having a few problems learning it. My equipment was also giving me some hiccups throughout the night. I was only able… Continue Reading... "M53"
Things are starting to go better with my meridian flips and reflection problems. I was able to get over three hours of great data on M3. My guiding was superb, and I started using a moderate dither every few frames. This is 230 frames of 50 seconds each at 800… Continue Reading... "M3, the original cluster"
For complete ridiculousness, I recently purchased a small Newtonian telescope to try to use as a guide scope. My hope is that the longer focal length will better match the imaging scope, and it will give more accurate guiding. With a finally decent, clear sky, I first picked an easy… Continue Reading... "NGC 663, the Lawnmower Man"
During my second test of my new equatorial platform, I decided to try a new cluster, Caroline’s Rose. This is 17 exposures of one minute each. Continue Reading... "NGC 7789, “Caroline’s Rose”"
On a mission to do a nearby nebula, I couldn’t help but get M37, the Salt and Pepper Cluster. I’ve recently been delighted with clusters, and plan to do many more if the conditions allow. This took about 30 frames of 15 seconds at 1000 ISO. Continue Reading... "Spice up your space!"
Right next to the Fireworks galaxy is the Ghost Bush cluster. Seeing as I hadn’t done a cluster yet, I figured, why not? As soon as I planted on it, the tracking was perfect, and I snapped away about 75 shots at 1000 ISO at 15 seconds. Continue Reading... "First cluster, the “Ghost Bush”"
