We had a clear night in the SE UK last night. I set up at 5:30 just as it was getting proper dark. I donned thermals, tee shirt, sweat shirt, jacket (sleeveless) overalls, jacket (sleeves), snood, hat and gloves. Using
NINA I Plate solved, Auto focused and Polar Aligned. Altitude was 13' too high but Azimuth was only 18" too West, I was happy with that! The plan was to run through the January
DSO Challenge targets. So I captured the M35 and NGC2158 clusters first but then had to get the hair drier out and do the first dew clear of the evening! Alan's next targets were M78 and
NGC 2022 but they were too low still. While I was waiting for Orion to rise over my neighbour's house I grabbed 10 x 240 second subs of Abell262. Seems the main group of galaxies were missing! So I sent my image to
Astrometry.net and discovered that the main group is off to the top of my image! More research required next time!
My Darks and Flats don't seem to have calibrated properly! After clearing the dew again, I slewed to NGC2022. It's tiny! But it really is a thing of beauty, I captured another 10 x 240 second subs, hopefully I'll get something good from them.
Moving on to
Brett's January Carbon Star Hunt after dinner, I grabbed NQ
Gem, a lovely orange
gem. While I was capturing 10 x 120 second subs I stood looking at the clearest night sky we have had for ages! I used to do a lot more visual than I do now but it is still a buzz to stand and look! The mighty Orion was now above the roof tops. I took in Taurus, Mars in Aries, Auriga and Perseus at the zenith, curve round Andromeda to Pegasus all below Cassiopeia. Picking out the locations of stars, galaxies and
DSOs was a joy!
R Lep was not as red as I expected it to be, maybe the dome of the Medway Towns light pollution dulled it. Then to finish up I grabbed some V614 Mon which was above the roof now. I'll post those up in
Brett's Carbon Star Hunt soon!
I was going to get some Flats and pack up because it was 9:45 and I had to get up at 5 next morning to go to work today down on the south coast. But the last target of the
DSO challenge, M78 was now high enough to capture. I couldn't help myself! I framed up and captured 10 x 240 second subs.
I had darks for 240 seconds and 120 seconds images already so I just needed Flats and Flat Darks which in
NINA is a doddle!
It's nice to spend all night striving to get that great image but it's also a lot of fun to roam about a few places on the same night too!
Right, I've got some processing to do now!
Thanks for reading
Regards
Graeme