Image from last night & feeling lucky.

[pipnina]

Last night I went out to the front garden with the camera & my 10x50s. It wasn't perfect seeing but there weren't any clouds this time. I had a look around and the best target for the camera seemed to be the heart & soul nebula, so I se the camera going on that.

Taking my glasses off to use the binoculars, I saw the milky way actually pop out at me. It was just about visible with the glasses on but became an easy sight with my glasses removed, with the binoculars I had a glance at M31, the double cluster, tried for M101 and felt like I might have gotten it (not sure), saw the omega & eagle. At this point I realized just how good I had it compared to a lot of people. Being able to just step outside with my 10x50s and see some of the best objects in the sky with ease, in spite of the white street lamps either side of me. The only thing I feel I can lament about is my eyes' astigmatism.

 

The image itself came out fairly well, the 105 2.8 is an improvement over my 18-55 in several ways although it suffers in sharpness across the field wide open.

Heart & soul faintly visible, shame the stars all seem to be a bit bloated.

 

P.S. Posted in lounge as talking about observing & imaging, and wasn't sure which of those two sections to post in...

 

Hope you guys have some clear skies!

[Guest]

Really like your story. How did you get the image. Was the camera driven?

[pipnina]

1 hour ago, Grumpy Martian said:

Really like your story. How did you get the image. Was the camera driven?

Camera was on an unmotorized tripod, I took 183 4 second exposures, adjusting the camera's orientation every 60 shots. I used all the space on my SD card.

[laudropb]

Very nice photo. You are lucky to have such nice skies from your home site. I always keep my glasses on when using bins, but then I am short sighted.

[Knight of Clear Skies]

16 hours ago, pipnina said:

Camera was on an unmotorized tripod, I took 183 4 second exposures, adjusting the camera's orientation every 60 shots. I used all the space on my SD card.

Good effort for untracked, just getting a hint of the Heart & Soul there. There is a little bit of vignetting, if you can take some flats it should sort that out.

[pipnina]

Just now, Knight of Clear Skies said:

Good effort for untracked, just getting a hint of the Heart & Soul there. There is a little bit of vignetting, if you can take some flats it should sort that out.

Yeah, I will have to sort out some flat & bias files. I think part of my problem with processing is the difference between linear and gamma TIFF files (possibly part of why the vignetting wasn't removed by my gradient removal). I will have to experiment with such.