Afocal M44 - The Praesaepe/Beehive Cluster

[Whippy]

Busy night tonight. Cold, clear (nice layer of frost over everything!) but lots to see and do . So here's my attempt on M44, lovely open cluster with lots of stars to pick out. It's the usual setup, the Canon Powershot connected to the 21mm Hyperion (mag x48) with a Neodynium filter, Celestron C8N and my EQ6pro to keep it all nice a steady. 31 x 15 second exposures, stacked in DSS and a bit of playing about in Photoshop (mainly levels). I have cropped a fair bit of the vignetting/blurry bits so it's not the whole thing. Anyways, enjoy!

(click to make me bigger)

Tony..

[barkis]

The Beehive is a very striking cluster Tony, Its a very difficult subject to capture afocally, getting it all in the FOV,

although you've got a good bit of it in. You should have bought a DSLR at Astrofest.

Can't say I saw any there though.

Ron.

[SteelRat]

Yet more imaging Tony? You've got a nice sharp pic there mate 8) Good stuff.

Cheers

Matt(SR)

[Whippy]

Cheers Ron, I have cropped a fair bit of it out as the Hyperions do distort towards the edges on my f5 newt. Here's the uncropped version:

(click to enlarge)

Hm, DSLR? I don't know about that mate! For now, I'm quite happy just playing about with this setup. I'm starting to find it's limitations now as I've had several goes at M31 and M81 and I just get a smudge but it's all good fun .

Yet more imaging Tony? You've got a nice sharp pic there mate 8) Good stuff.

Cheers

Matt(SR)

Aye, another bash tonight! If it's clear tomorrow, I'll be leaving the camera indoors .

Tony..

[jgs001]

Nice one Tony.