BinocularSky

Looks like a satellite: consistent width of trail and abrupt termination at lower left.

And NGC 3969, I think. Nice; that galaxy is a difficult object to do anything with because of the overwhelming background starlight.

Yup, it *is* nebulosity, not just fog on the lens! :)

"but I don't know if the field flattener is worth going for yet......although it does seem to me that there are some mis-shaped stars towards the RHS of the image.....but that might be indicative of a collimation issue????"

Do you want to put a nice bright star in that region, focus it as well as you can, defocus it so you get lots of diffraction rings, then defocus the same amount the other way, take an image of each, and then we can see what the patterns tell us.

"It is funny that you saw RAF roundel's, I saw donuts ;-)"

Very funny indeed, especially considering that you're an engineer and I'm overweight! :)

Bahtinov masks aren't that difficult to make; plastic from A4 "wallet/folder" (WHS), sharp knife/scalpel, and Robert's your mother's brother. Might do until you get a bought one.

I did use a Hartmann years ago, but gave it up in favour of finding a star visible among the branches/leaves of a tree (just merge the images as you do with a Hartmann) -- much better, and free!

Nice thing about your out-of-focus star is that it proves you have a triplet apo -- the bright star looks like an old RAF roundel, as opposed to the "apple & plum" colours you get with a doublet. :-)

Hey, Keiran, you have a very good image -- no matter you didn't get more data, you still had a good night overall, didn't you? :-)

Impressive. I like the way the horizon glow gives a sort of "reverse vignetting"; makes one hanker for a sky with no light on the horizon -- imagine what the zenith would be like then!

"I'm now also wondering what you have hanging out of the front of your trousers"

Dunno, except that it looks like a victim of Peyronie's Disease :) (before you ask me what that is, see: http://bit.ly/bPL3zP :):D)

Apologies if I got you excited, Shaun, but I'm already spoken for...:)

Sorry, chaps, if my heavenly body distracted you so much from the ones in the sky...

(On your phone for that comment, Keiran?:))

Thanks, Russ -- I came across some scans I'd done of old Fujichrome slides and thought they'd make a nice contrast to the ease of getting decent digital images nowadays. My favourite one is the Orion-rise, through Aurora Poolealis, from Badbury Rings.

Just checked on Guide -- top right is UGC5302, aka PGC 0028563. Mag 15.3, it's 61Mpc (2x10^8) ly away.

The one below is NGC3077; not sure about top right.

Ah, Berenice's Hair Clip. Must show you it through the big bins -- it's lovely visually if the sky is transparent.

Now that is truly lovely!

Very nice, Shaun!

One thing: I hope I'm wrong, but the diffraction rings around Alnitak suggest a touch of astigmatism (star off-centre, slight elongation). Might be worth checking that nothing is slightly tilted or off-axis. (If it's just imaging/processing artefacts, I apologise and I'll get me coat... :-) )