M42 and some WIP Horsehead/Flame region.

[CKemu]

Equipment:

• Scope: SW Esprit 100ED
• Mount: SW EQ6-Pro
• Camera: ATIK 490EX
• Ha for Flame/Horsehead, RGB for M42

Photographed M42 on the night of the 17th - it's been over 8 months since I've had the scope out, so remembering order of operation, the software etc was a slight challenge, so gave myself a quick target and one I enjoy imaging. Did a short run of 15 x 5 minutes per channel, slapped together in Photoshop, with a quick stretch on the data.

The Ha shot of the Flame and Horsehead is the continuation of a project from last January, finally added the data to make the panel for the Flame look less noisy, I want to do a third panel to the left, in order to capture the tail of the Horsehead region. Two panels 16 x 10 minute exposures in each panel, stitched and stretched in PS. My stars I feel are a little smidge eggy, but given how rare the chances are to get out, I feel I shall just have to live with them.

I've barely had chance to use the mount, and learn it's quirks - for the most part I had 0.4"-0.6" guiding in RA, but my DEC became a mess as the night went on, it'd guide within 0.4-0.8" for minutes at a time, and then violently swing 4-5" before correcting, guiding fine and then doing it again, with no pattern to when it'd do it...I re-jigged cables, thinking snags, and it was a mess to be fair until I tidied - but it still did it, so assuming balance was off as it got lower on the horizon....? Eh not sure and being in the UK with seldom chance to spend time gremlin hunting, this will remain an unsolved mystery.