My girlfriend's first DSO!

[NickK]

My gf braved the cold and dark.. listened patiently to my wittering and setup chaos..

After first setting up with an eyepiece and finding either M92 or M13 by manually sweeping the sky (ok I admit it - she's looking at me! Personally I think it was pure skill ).

We plugged everything in, focused the scope, focused the OAG, we went to look for M57 by hand (undoing the clutches moving the scope around between Sulafat and Shellack and no finderscope) and just using the camera to see if we could find it.

Now this is the first real time I've had a chance to play with the 383L, using a guider (the OAG+16ic) and PHD. I also took some darks and flats too.. although I'm still working out a good processing routine with those. Here's my attempt so far (the flats are obviously not working). I also noted this morning the FITS header info states the camera was at 10degC.. so nebulosity doesn't really do the set point cooling properly I think!

Sandrine's first DSO, M57 (six 60second exposures and I forgot to check the focus before starting the exposures!):

[IvanT]

Oh now that's shrewd, get your better half hooked and avoid all those awkward "what's that you've bought now" moments. Inspired 

Congrats.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[NickK]

I mentioned last week about Olly's place (and the lovely pictures). She's french so she was very interested in it. So last night she was saying that she's been looking at the prices for Olly's place for a holiday

[Multi-Coated]

oh you lucky lucky Lad !! :)

[fatwoul]

Lucky indeed. I tried everything to get my (now ex-) girlfriend interested in the astro stuff. Didn't work. In the end she ditched me because the dome was getting more attention than she was.

Nice picture and story, though. You are fortunate to have someone to share these things with.

[NickK]

Just added a a reprocessed image with a cropped version.