VdB29, VdB31, B26, B27, B28 - Black Friday Special

[StuartJPP]

With all the talk about Black Friday, I decided to do some dark nebulae hunting. I seem to be drawn to dark nebulae objects of the night sky, just something about them. I also like the challenge as they require quite a lot of captured data. Love the Van den Bergh and Barnard Objects.

Weather prediction was a bit ambiguous, but since it was roughly new moon I decided to give it a go and set off for the in-laws in deepest, though not so darkest, Lincolnshire, glad that I did. Things were not ideal, but were pretty decent. Two very frosty nights on the trot during new moon...unheard of.

Equipment:
Baader modified Canon EOS 6D
Canon 500mm f/4 L IS Lens @ f/4
Avalon Instruments M-Zero Mount
QHY5L-II-M and QHY miniGuideScope for guiding
DIY PoleMaster for polar alignment
APT for Data Acquisition + Dithering + Framing
PHD2 for guiding

Acquisition Details:
79x 5 minute subs @ ISO800 (~6.5 hours)
72x Bias
37x Flats
No Darks

Conditions:
SQM ~20.75
Temperature -4°C

Imaged just outside Horncastle in Lincolnshire on the evening of the 29th and 30th November 2019.

Thanks for looking.........

 

VdB29, VdB31, B26, B27, B28

 

Annotated:

 

 

What the lens looked like after each night...nice and sparkly.

 

 

SQM ~20.75

[MartinB]

Really nice, beautiful clean image with great colour and the dust looks so ...er...dusty.  Well worth the frozen extremeties!

[Allinthehead]

Ohh dark sky in laws, the best kind. Great image👍

[Brian Maurer]

Great image, except that last one, I would freak out!

[StuartJPP]

21 hours ago, MartinB said:

Really nice, beautiful clean image with great colour and the dust looks so ...er...dusty.  Well worth the frozen extremeties!

The sacrifices we make for these astro images...

 

21 hours ago, Allinthehead said:

Ohh dark sky in laws, the best kind. Great image👍

Oh yes, their skies are much, much darker than mine at home so I don't mind visiting them 😉.

 

19 hours ago, Brian Maurer said:

Great image, except that last one, I would freak out!

First time I saw my lovely lens frosted up like that I certainly freaked out, but not any more.

What I do is put a moisture trap like below into the lens hood (keeping it horizontal so as not to touch the front objective), and put a lens cap over the hood. By the time I get up the next morning the lens has warmed up slowly and the front element and hood is dry.