M45 with very small equipment

[rodrigol]

I'm a beginner with some decent equipment but little time :-) Lately the weather did not help but last night we had 4 hours of clearish sky so I decided to setup small and try to go for M45. By small I mean a Nikon V1 with 30-110mm lens on top of a startracker2 and an intervalometer specifically designed for Astrophotography using Nikon cameras (for those interested please see: http://www.bigmike.it/intervalometer/). 

Here is the result of from last night (11 x 2.5 minutes Lights + 8 darks and 9 Bias frames) at ISO 400, stacked in DSS and tweaked a bit using PS. Tracking is not perfect and can be improved but I'm having issues with the tripod being level. Some of the blue reflection nebulosity is visible but more data (and better resolution) will be required to get more detail - but I'm quite happy with what is achievable with small kit :-)

[Pete Presland]

very nice start, you should be very pleased with it.