M81, M82 and a peek at M57 :)

[Luke Newbould]

Hey everyone!

Well, Saturday night ended up clearing up for me out of nowhere - it was 11:30pm and I went outside with my torch to double check that my pet chickens were locked away for the night when I noticed after my eyes had adjusted that it was clear out! - a quick check of the weather confirmed that this should be the case for the next few hours at least...

After a bit of a dry spell in terms of clear sky opportunities I was ready to take any opportunity I could, I quickly got everything out and cooling down while I picked a target.

I'd settled on m81 & m82, well positioned and prime targets for a moonless night - about half an hour later of cooling and off I went, the sky wasn't quite as cloudless as the weather forecast promised, but when is it ever? - still, I'd managed to capture 31x3m frames on m81&m82 before losing sight over the house, but the night had really cleared up by that point, - windy, but clear.

not wanting to waste the rest of the night, I decided to point my scope over toward the East to take a look at m57 and do a bit of EAA - for this I used 30s exposures live-stacked in Sharpcap with on the fly flat subtraction, it's always pure magic to me when you see an image start to develop on screen in full colour right there in front of you!

 

Anyhow, I had a boatload of fun on an otherwise uneventful night and for that at least I'm thankful!

 

Here's what I got - I also recorded a video of my night if anyone would like to check it out

M81+M82, 31x3m frames - 2600mc pro, Esprit 120

M57, 26 minutes total (30s exposures, live-stack) - 2600mc pro, esprit 120.

 

And the video -

 

 

Thank you for looking!