First attempt at Lovejoy/Pleiades, 2015-01-17

[TractionMan]

Finally got some fairly clear skies last weekend (2015-01-17), although it was a bit hazy, so I thought I'd try to image comet C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy. Set up my Sony A77 with a Tamron 90mm macro lens and iOptron Skytracker V2 on a sturdy tripod. Spent quite some time to try to get polar alignement and focus as good as possible and then get comet Lovejoy and the Pleiades in frame. Got 46 images (45 sec exposures) of which, perhaps half of them were somewhat usable. My astro image processing skills leaves a lot to be desired. I stuggle to get my head around DSS and then how to fix the problem with light pollution in my images and get as much detail as possible from the data I've collected. The result is not great, but it's a start and I've got lots and lots to learn.

First attempt, 5 x 45 sec lights, 5 darks @ ISO 400, 90mm, f/4.0:

[TractionMan]

Set up a second camera to try to shoot a BTS time-lapse. Made from 175 images, 30 sec exposures. Might as well post the video in the same thread: