A night under the stars

Friday night came around and it was clear. Not just clear, but really clear. Excellent. So after I'd done all that needed to be done, I headed out into the garden. I put the HEQ5 down, so the N leg was pointing roughly at North, powered up the mount (hoping that my power pack would last) and got on with polar aligning. A quick swing of the axis to set the current date and time, some minor adjustments on the Altitude and Azimuth bolts and I was there. I powered down, popped the camera on the scope, used the axis clutches to swing around to Sirius, powered up and used Sirius for focusing. The usual 10x liveview and adjust. Then to see what sort of exposure length I could do. Well first off I took a single 2 minute shot of Sirius



With that done, I used the clutches again to swing around to Orion and M42. I used the opportunity to grab a bunch of 2 minute subs of the area.



I'm really pleased with how this has come out, but it really needs more time on it, and darks (I forgot to take them).

Whilst I was capturing this data, I used my 15x70's and had a wander around, reacquainting myself with some friends from last year. I started with M35, then moved almost straight up, through M36, M37 and onto M38. In the FOV of the bins, M38, Mr Smiley, and I think the little fish were all visible. A very nice sight. Then, of course, how could I miss the sisters, onto M45 for a view of the gems on velvet, a lovely cluster, that I come back to as often as I can, and one I intend getting the HEQ5 and C80ED on at some point soon.

Then, swinging down and across, the faint glow in the middle of cancer that marks out the beehive caught my eye, so I had a good look at that too. Then back to Sirius and the clusters in that location. Spotting first off M41, then up and across to M46 and M47.

Then, the M42 data captured, I moved on to have a bash at M44. I swung around, tried to align as best as I could (not easy, as I had to half lie on the floor and sort of get my head between the tripod and the camera... Hmm... gonna have to do something about that. Anyway. I captured a couple of subs, and checked them. The cluster is too big for the C80ED to frame and some stars sit outside the frame, shame.

So I decided, as I'd seen it in the bins, that I'd have a crack at M41, here's the result



I really like the results here, the colours in particular.

Whilst this data was being captured, I had some more time with the Bins, on up to Mirfak and it's association, around a little more to look at the Double Cluster. Not easy now as it's playing peekaboo in the trees...

I then noticed that the Dipper had swung around and up, and had a look around for Mel 111, it took me a few minutes, but again found it and had a good look here. Then, with Leo rising above the rooflines, and a bright dot somewhat below, I swung the bins onto it, and there was Saturn. Always an impressive sight, but tricky to see in handheld 15x70's.

I then moved back to Orion and had a good look at him. M42 being the obvious one, and a patch of grey, sort of birdy shaped mistiness. Up to the belt and I think it's a Struve cluster around the centre star, and the same around Orion's head (although I can't remember the names or the numbers).

I noticed as I finished capturing the data for M41 that the objective was misting up, so I grabbed the OH's hair dryer and gave it a very gently fanning to clear the mist, adjusted the mount to point to Alnitak, and tried to see how far I could push. At 4 minutes, trailing was beginning to creep in, so that was a bit far, I dropped back to 3 minutes (although I could probably have got away with 3.5 mins), pushed the ISO up to 1600, and set about trying to capture the horse head and flame. Having set the timer remote, I went in for a cuppa and to warm up leaving the gear running. This really needs an entire session devoted to it, with an unmodded camera it takes some serious time to capture, and even then it's very very faint, but it's there.



I'm really pleased with this session, it's proved the mount and scope are very capable and opens up huge amounts of possibilities.