Maxrayne

Might be worth having a look at comet C/2020 FL4 as well

Managed a quick grab at M42 last night between clouds.

ED72/modded 450D on the SW SA, 60 second subs (37 minutes), plus darks and flats, ISO 800. Biggest complaint is that bright blue star on the right, but I'm guessing there was still some high level cloud. Other than that, considering the lack of time on target, quite chuffed with this. Even managed to not blow the core totally.

Technical Card:
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Capture Date: 16/12/2018
Sky Quality: 5
Target: M101 Pinwheel Galaxy
Location: Ursa Major
Right Ascension: 14h 03m 12.6s
Declination: +54° 20′ 57″
Apparent Magnitude: 7.86
Estimated Age: N/K
Estimated Distance: 21 million light years
Mount: SW SA
Tracked/Guided: Tracked
Guidecam: N/A
Guidescope: N/A
Imaging Device: SW ST102T
Capture Device: Nikon D5300 (unmodded)
Focal Length: 500mm
Aperture: f / 9.5
ISO: 1600
Sub Length: 45 seconds
No of exposures: 56
Darks: 5
Flats: Nil
Bias: Nil
Total Integration Time: 2520 seconds
Capture Software: N/A
Stacking Software: Sequator
Editing Software: LightRoom
Playlist: Sleeping With Sarah Brightman via Spotify

Following intently as you're exactly where I'm at atm with this ?

14 hours ago, Snooze said:

Total integration time was 1h02min

V nice indeed ???

On 07/10/2018 at 23:18, Snooze said:

Had another go at the double cluster and Heart & Soul. Went for 2min exposures this time @70mm.

 

Nice! What was the total integration time?

Ordered a few items from FLO now, on word of mouth recommendation, and I'm FAR from disappointed. Martin has been most helpful in assisting picking the right items for what I want to achieve within my budget. He'll query one way, but once I've explained, he isn't someone who gets all funny about not going with his recommendation, something I find quite refreshing. I also ran into a problem with the SW auto focuser my ex got me as a birthday gift from the kids, in that it stopped focusing. After explaining to Martin in a late night email, including the fact I'd stripped it down as far as I could to see if it was anything obvious (sadly not), I woke up this morning and was more than pleasantly surprised to see a replacement on it's way. And that was before my first coffee!!! Can't ask for better service than that!! Think I'm happy to say that the only time I wouldn't use FLO is if they're unable to source something, and even then, I believe they'd bust a gut to get hold of something they don't have in. Great work, you guys seriously rock and, imo, have a well deserved reputation of being the "GoTo" (pun intended) place for all things astro