From 6th March 2024

[M40]

Very misty night but had to play. All taken with Stellamira 125mm,  zwo asi290mm, heq5 and asiair. Simple screen grabs.

M108, 50 x 10 seconds. Distance about 28 million light years away. 

 

M109, 30 x 10 seconds, distance about 67 million light years away 

 

NGC 3718, 60 x 10 seconds, distance about 52 million light years away. Complete with a few satellite trails.

 

 

Edited March 6 by M40

[PeterC65]

There's some very wispy cloud about here but I wouldn't say it's misty. I use the SharpCap brightness filter to deal with cloud drifting across objects.

It looks like you may have a bit of dust somewhere in your optics. There's a dark spot about 20% of the way down each image and just to the right of centre. I've had some success with using flats to get rid of that sort of thing. Testing both darks and flats tonight, they do make a noticeable difference, at least at higher magnifications (Explorer 200 with x1.7 Barlow).

 

[M40]

Spotted that, the telescope and associated bits have got somewhat moist recently. My guess is its on the objective. I shall find out tomorrow 🤔

Just checked yesterday's pictures, nothing on them. 

26 minutes ago, PeterC65 said:

Testing both darks and flats tonight

I've not tried flats yet, some more reading to be done on that score, darks seem easy enough with the asiair but I literally just scratched the suface with those. 

Edited March 6 by M40

[bosun21]

Nice images. There's just something about mono images that make them appeal to me. I particularly like M109.

[M40]

11 hours ago, PeterC65 said:

It looks like you may have a bit of dust somewhere in your optics.

Camera. Quite how it got there is a mystery as I leave the camera, flip mirror and eyepiece all in one lump. Hey ho.

[M40]

7 hours ago, bosun21 said:

Nice images. There's just something about mono images that make them appeal to me. I particularly like M109.

I must admit, I am enjoying this. The pictures will never win prizes but that is not my aim, standing outside, getting on target and watching that picture build up is me all over 😁