My first auto-guided image on my Star Adventurer - M8 & M20

[Rudy Pohl]

Lagoon Nebula (M8) and Trifid Nebula (M20) in the Milky Way Galactic Core - Ottawa, 36% moon illumination. 
(Seen in my Flickr gallery here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/rudypohl/41738509660/in/dateposted/

I recently bought a guide scope and guide camera for my Star Adventurer and a few nights ago took my first crack at guiding. It took me almost a hour to get PHD2 working, but I was finally able to do some successful guiding despite the conditions being quite windy. I started with 3 minute exposures and then moved to 5, 6, 7 and decided to end the night by trying for a whopping 10-minute sub which turned out good enough for me to incorporate into the image above. You can see the sub by itself in my Flickr gallery here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/rudypohl/28638553447/in/dateposted/

This image is pretty  noisy and has a lot of shortcomings, but I was so excited that I can now guide my Star Adventurer that I wanted to share the news and post my first image.

Camera: Nikon D5500 unmodified
Lens: Nikon 70-300 f4.5-5.6 G VR
Hoya Intensifier anti-light pollution filter
Focal length: 230mm
Aperture: f5.2,
ISO: 200
Exposure: 3 x 6-minutes, 1 x 10-minutes = 28 minutes total integration. (The only subs that turned out because of the wind)
Mount: Sky Watcher Star Adventurer
Guide scope: Starlight 50mm (190mm focal length)
Guide Camera: Atair GPCAM2 AR130 mono
Guiding software: PHD2 1.6.5
Stacked in DSS
Processed in Pixinsight 1.8, Photoshop CS5

 
Best regards,

Rudy

[rotatux]

Definitely splendid ! Good colors, FoV and framing. Made me forget about optical aberrations of the lens while contemplating details in each subject in the frame.

[MarsG76]

Great image and nice composition.