M44 Beehive - another miserable attempt

[Sparrow]

Once again the elements defeat me. Thought I'd try again on the Beehive to start the evening off. High wispy cloud has destroyed all the clarity and the wind has paid havoc with the guiding. Just about managed to pull this one out although I'm still not really happy with it, but when I slewed to M108 afterwards, even 3 minute subs were washed out thanks to moonlight illuminating the high cloud.

ANother abandoned evening unfortuantely.

[Fay]

well its not that bad, nice bit of colour. it is really no good to do stars with that Moon around. I have just wasted another evening because of it, and I was doing a nebula!

Fay

[Anweniel]

Seems so often spend so much time getting set up, aligned, levelled, cooled then all of a sudden a bunch of clouds come out of nowhere and park themselves in front of your target or the wind gets right up... always something!

Still looks like some nice colour in there, you have done a nice job particuarly considering the conditions.

[nytecam]

Once again the elements defeat me. Thought I'd try again on the Beehive to start the evening off. High wispy cloud has destroyed all the clarity and the wind has paid havoc with the guiding. Just about managed to pull this one out although I'm still not really happy with it, but when I slewed to M108 afterwards, even 3 minute subs were washed out thanks to moonlight illuminating the high cloud. ANother abandoned evening unfortuantely.

I think it's pretty good and nice colour but I'd like to know what scope [aperture/ f/ratio], cam and total exp rather than guess?

PS - clear skies in London 'burbs last night and ok to image under gibbous moon which has, for me, little impact against the general LP. Zero set-up time under my tiny dome helps a lot

[Sparrow]

Nytecam - it was through the 8"newt which is F.5 taken with the DSLR - 14 x 1 min exposures at ISO 800. Not many subs I know, but I've found with all the other clusters I've images that it's been enough - for some reason the Beehive is different.

Next time out I'm going to image this at ISO400 for 30 seconds to try and get more colour from the main stars, and combine with longer subs to get more of the fainter stars.

[nytecam]

Thanks Sparrow for info - good luck with future projects ;-)