Mixed success from last night - M16 & Neowise

[Snoani]

With the moon disappearing and a forecast of total clear skies for last night I was looking forward to a night of imaging M16 for the first time.  So in the evening I set up the scope well in advance but before I started I decided to take a quick stroll at sunset to local spot that boasts panoramic views of the Isle of Wight to capture some images of comet Neowise.  

This image below is an 8 second exposure taken with a Nikon 7100 at 18mm f3.5 ISO400.  It's not close to the quality of some images I have seen, but could be far worse also.  

 

With the skies still clear I wandered back home to the scope that I had setup earlier and an intention to capture about 2 hours of data for M16.  I therefore aligned the mount, star aligned, focused and framed M16.  I then calibrated PHD2 and started guiding with a healthy graph.  And then, literally about 1 minute and just as I am about to press the button for APT to start the imaging session, the whole sky vanished behind a ceiling of cloud.  Checking my weather app, which was still forecasting totally clear skies, I waited patiently for it to pass.  An hour later at 1am the sky finally reappeared and my rig was able to guide again and so with limited darkness remaining I set the imaging plan running and hoped for the best.  The session was unfortunately hampered by passing cloud and so I only achieved 40 minutes of usable data.  

So the image below is 40 minutes of uncalibrated data captured using a Skywatcher Startravel 120, Canon 1300D (modified), HEQ5 and guided using a  ZWO 120mm attached to a ZWO 30F4 guidescope.  I only took a few minutes to make a basic edit.  

The upside is that not only are clear skies forecast for tonight at my location, I should today be receiving a new imaging scope, as I have upgraded to a Meade 6000 80mm triplet APO to replace the achromatic telescope that I have been using so far.  All going to plan, I therefore hope to be posting an new image of M16 this weekend of greater quality.  

Fingers crossed and thanks for reading.  

Jem