NGC 2632 / Beehive cluster / M 44 / Praesepe

[Jannis]

Well, not much to brag about this pic. I honestly feel that recently, every DSO i do, gets worse and worse. This time mainly because of my collimation seems off, pluss lack of field flattener that gives rather unsharp stars everywhere else but in center.

But, here's my M44 from yesterday, over a street lamp and right next to the moon. And yes, you guessed it, no LP or moonlight filter... Haven't got the money for that luxury yet...

Oh, and also no darks, as it seems my scope is leaking in light somewhere due to the strong streetlamp right next to it, so the darks make more of a mess then clearing up the pic.

Flats added though.

Total exposure is 17 min 33 sec taken at ISO800 with 33 frames stacked in DSS, and processed in PS.

If anyone want to have a go to see if they can get it better, feel free to play with the TIF file stright from DSS. Only resized it a bit to make it actually possible to download as the original is 109MB...

http://jannis.no-ip.info/raw/M44lowres.tif 36MB