Nigel G

Hi, always good to see new faces shame about your camera packing up. Your scope is a 2mtr focal length F10. You might struggle to get long enough exposures with Alt-AZ unless you can guide the mount. ( I see in the specs the mount can be guided ) I hope you can prove me wrong though Most Alt-AZ imagers use scopes between 500mm and 750mm focal length and low F ratio - F4 - F6.5, faster scopes to gather the required photons in a short time. I'm no expert so don't take my word as the law I look forward to seeing your images. Cheers Nige.

99% of my Alt-AZ imaging is DSO's rising from the east, and with the 150p reflector so camera heavy end is front end, the mount is driving the load up if you know what I mean. Nige.

I used both 80ed @ 500mm FL and 150p @ 750mm FL, both within the weight limit and max exposure length about 90s but about 60% keep, the 80ed was a little bit better but that would be expected. I would say with 30s around 80 % keepers and 60s around 60-70 %. Many things can reduce the keepers, the alignment, balance, wind, stability of the tripod, hanging cables, position of the target, occasionally everything seemed right but just would not track well so I would start again from the beginning. Re align and balance the scope, sometimes everything worked perfect and would have 99% keep at 45s or so. Every night was different I would balance the scope a little on the camera heavy side. Nige.

A couple of moonless hours last night but only managed to get 1.5 hours before bed was calling. 23x240s ISO 800, darks, flats & bias. modified 1200d, 80ED, EQ3. PHD2, DSS, ST & PS NGC281 The Pacman nebula. Cheers Nige.

Hope you have more luck than me, poored with rain until 22:30

Not so soon, taking a long time saving and only about halfway. Sailing and astrophotography are both expensive hobbys but I need to do both

Me too, Hoping to get a couple of hours on M31 with the scope. Looking a bit patch cloud here though. Focusing the stock lens, try on Saturn or a bright star before mounting the camera, I found that a bit easier. Nige.

Very nice image, good detail in the spiral arms and nice stars. A touch blown in the core, but it is a difficult DSO with such a bright core. Still a better job than me Great little scope you have there Thanks for sharing Nige.

Great minds I found a 12nm clip in filter for sale £75, still deciding I have the funds but still saving for the Zwo 1600mm which has 3 narrow band filters. Do I borrow from the funds? Nige.

Ken, thats a good point, there's plenty of clusters and doubles to capture during the moons presents. Nige.

The first image is 1h 8m, the moon had caused a fair amout of glow in the full stack ( second image) quite a bit of work to remove it compared to the first. So I'm better off getting 1 hour of no moon than 2 hours with moon, unless the moon is opposite in the sky to the target or you have narrow band filters, It's not really worth it. On the other hand, we get so few clear nights here that a moon lit night can't be waisted and is better than a cloudy night. Carry on as usual then Nige.

We had a couple of hours of clear sky before the moon destroyed the dark so I set my scope towards NGC 7380 the Wizard nebula. I took 2 hours of 240s subs ISO800, the last couple had too much moon lite in so only dumped 2 subs. After about an hour each sub was getting a little brighter. I did 2 stacks. One had 28x240s with darks, flats and bias, the other stack had 17x240s ( the first 17 of the session) with flats and bias- no darks. Modified 1200D, 80ED, EQ3. - PHD2, DSS, ST & PS. Which do you think is which ? I think I prefer the first, seems to show more detail. Cheers Nige.

Just buzzing around the interweb at some pics, The Hubble Pillars of creation in M16. considering a light polluted back garden at about sea level with a tiny 80ED EQ3 and cheap DSLR they are visible, a massive crop of M16 and the famous Hubble image. Mines the one on the right Nige.

Nice M17 @Art Gecko hope you get over your flu soon. I was looking for a target as far from the Moon as possible, IC1805 the Heart nebula fitted the bill and perfectly in frame for my 80ED. A misty evening turned to a clear night, dumped 12 because of moisture in the air, I tried wrapping a warm tea towel around the scope and changing it every 10 minutes for another warm tea towel ( 2 tea towels warmed down the front of my trousers to body temp ) No dew build up on the main scope. 20x240s + darks, flats and bias. ISO800 - EQ3, 1200D, 80ED. Cheers Nige.

Thanks ☺yes very keen fisherman ( www.fishynige.co.uk ) , we are Sailing the East coast, Ipswich, Aldeburgh, Orford. Nice dark sky's so far, great observing with the bins, laying on deck gazing at night. Hope to get some Milky Way shots from Orford in a couple of days time. Cheers. Nige.

No worries I saw another Bubble image with the lobster claw nebula in it, here on SGL I'm off sailing for a week tonight, bet its going to be clear and moonless for the whole week Nige.