PESKYWAABBIT

Had a few hours of clear skies last night after the storm Doris. Used my house as a windbreaker so I could get my scope setup and the skies cleared for a few hours. Still struggling to get decent images without seeing star trails over longer exposures. (15"-30") I'm also strugglign to get my histogram to not be stuck at the far left, so my pictures are useless at the end.

I am really in need of an auto guider. :/

I also noticed that tracking was slower going in one direction but not the other. I think I may have had my setup unbalanced. I will be aware of this next time.

Photographed my first proper star the other night. I couldn't get my kit setup for nebulae in time and it was nearing 1 am. Capella from the constellation Auriga. 

It was also my first time using dark frames and it really did a great job removing the hot and cold pixels from my overall image.

I also am aware i was getting some star travel. I am not using autoguiding but instead the HEQ5's auto slewing.

Still from the amount of time I had to do this, I'm pretty proud of it at least. Learnt a lot and getting much more comfortable with my scope!

Clear skies appear to be so rare since I've gotten back into astronomy. Must be a curse of 2017 me thinks!

Pesky, out.

My First AstroPhotography photo!  Absolute nightmare, but still made this out of the nightmare!

Finally I have gotten myself a relatively decent setup (for my standards). For the last 10 years I've been using a Vixen Super Polaris Equatorial mount with a Vixen 80m Refractor to just point it at the sky and take a look at the usual easily seen objects such as the Moon, Saturn and Mars. 

Today I have added a HEQ5 mount to go with the Sky-Watcher 200 P Reflector I purchased earlier this week.

Now heres hoping for a decent clear sky so I can have a play around!