M13, first attempt at a deep sky object

[Hughsie]

Having spent some time using my Nikon D90 on a fixed tripod to take wide field images, last night I moved on and took the image below using my DSLR, William Optics Z61 combined with the field flatter on a polar aligned AVX mount. Using APT to sight and frame the cluster, I then switched to an intervalometer so I could capture 2 minute subs. Overall there are 37 lights combined with 5 darks and 10 flats, then stacked in DSS and processed through Photoshop.

Would welcome any feedback.

Cheers,

 

John

[PeterCPC]

Why did you switch from APT to an intervalometer?

Peter

[Hughsie]

Apt doesn’t allow you to complete a photo plan for a Nikon D90 for exposures over 30 seconds.

[PeterCPC]

Have you looked at Backyard Nikon - that would. If it's like BYE then it's very easy to use.

Peter

[Hughsie]

Hi Pete. Yes I have Backyard Nikon so 30s subs ok but can’t seem to do anything longer. Got a third hand Canon T3i arriving tomorrow so problem solved and will revert back to APT.

[kirkster501]

A nice wide-field of a lovely object.  A good first effort indeed.  Bravo.

[tooth_dr]

4 hours ago, Hughsie said:

Apt doesn’t allow you to complete a photo plan for a Nikon D90 for exposures over 30 seconds.

Same as my Canon 20d. You can do long exposures using a serial port cable into the camera but sounds like this won’t be necessary with a new camera en route.

Nice widefield of M13 ??

[Obi Wan Ken00bi]

Very nice image, great colors. Well done!!