M44 and some Bino viewing

After a day of heavy cloud and wind, the night came on, and the clouds cleared... What on earth (or in the heavens anyway) is going on. I had a meeting in the early evening, but was done by 9. Got home and setup. Levelled, powered up, alligned on Regulus, I can't believe Leo is climbing the sky already, used the goto to slew to M44 (a quick check with the RDF put it in just the right place) and setup for some imaging. Having set the timer remote running, I grabbed the 15x70's and found me a few M's and other targets. Firstly, M44 (what a great sight). Then I went to look for the Double cluster, and thanks to the change in orientation, it's all moved so fast... found a blob of light instead. That's odd thought I, that should be the double, scratching my head. Then took the bins away from my eyes and had another study of the stars... Ah, too low for the double, Mirfak is up there... Hmmm... that must be M31. Had another look, yep. Now I'd realised my mistake, it was clear. From there, up to Mirfak, and had a look at the association, then up the double cluster.

M45 was riding high in the sky, so I went onto there and had a good look around at this little nest of diamonds, lovely sight, and one I've not seen in quite some time. Orion, being prominent, was next, and in the 15x70's M42 was really rather a good sight. The shape was quite clear and pronounced. I had a little wander around in Monoceros trying to find the site of the Rosette, now I know I'm not going to see the Rosette in my bins, but there's a little cluster at it's heart and I found that quite easily.

Then I moved on up to Auriga, found the little fish, then onto Mr Smiley, M38 and the little NGC that marks his tear clearly visible. Then moved on down, following the M's M27, M36 and onto M35 in Gemini. Back to M44, and down a little to M67. An enjoyable M hunt, ok, less of a hunt, and more of a meander among known friends.

By this point, with my back aching again and getting cold, I header in, leaving the gear capturing data.

The rebalance of the scope has certainly helped, the drive train errors were gone. Now I'm finding another drawback. It appears that the longer focal length of the C80ED means that my subs have to be shorter before trailing sets in. Another niggle to work out, and more limits to test and work within... ho hum...

Anyway I captured about 35 light frames and lost half of them to trailing. Processing as normal in DSS with Darks, Flats and Flat Darks. Although I didn't frame it well, it's worked out nicely.



Having captured the data on M44, I slewed to M67, located and fired a couple of framing shots. Just got it centered and spotted a huge bank of cloud moving in from the west. I studied it for a few minutes to see what would happen and what direction it was moving, then packed up and came in. Good job too as within 30 minutes it was pouring with rain.

I plan to go back and capture some more data on M44 prehaps, starting earlier in the evening, if the weather will allow, maybe get some longer subs in and turn the camera into portrait. I'll also be having a go at M67 at some point.