The other part of Markarian's Chain

[Martin Meredith]

It must be something to do with our microclimate but the clouds often seem to dissipate quite late at night. On Saturday things cleared up around midnight -- not such a bad thing as it meant the 6-day-old moon was pretty low and on its way out. 

One task was to complete the missing part of Markarian Chain's (see earlier thread). Because I'd collected darks for 30s exposures this one is only 30s compared to the 60s for the earlier shot. Here's the screengrab from LodestarLive

followed by what Astrometry.net makes of it

and the corresponding DSS image

Finally, here's a quick manual rotate, alignment and overlay (i.e. no blending or anything) and a final up-down flip to show the whole Chain. Details as before: alt-az mode, 80mm f/6 Stellarvue Nighthawk achromat + 0.75 focal reduction, no filters.

This is something I'd like to repeat from a darker site with matched exposure times... 

I'll post some of the other captures from Saturday in another thread.

Thanks

Martin 

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Nice work. I have yet to see the chain this season

[Martin Meredith]

Nice work. I have yet to see the chain this season

Thanks Michael. I remember being blown away by it the first time I saw it in a big dob but seeing the same -- or more -- in an 80mm refractor with the Lodestar was amazing.

Martin

[nytecam]

Great results Martin - you're probably the most experience user of LodestarLive - well done :-)