Heart Nebula -
IC 1805 - Sharpless 2-190 - 7500 light years
2hr exposure - 60 x 2min - 12800iso - 600mm
f/9 - Moonlit
Bortle 2 (2/20/21)
Nikon focal 300mm
f/4.5 + Nikon TC-301 2x teleconverter
Nikon D800 w/ Star Adventurer 2i Equatorial Mount
Finally had a successful evening after many cloudy ones.... I drove 30 miles to a
Bortle 2 east of Redding, California, USA. The only downside was the moon was out and definitely affected the pictures. Tried out attaching the green laser to the camera for the first time and plate-solving with the plug from
dslr to iphone (
http://nova.astrometry.net/upload ) -- I'd say it was revolutionary. I didn't even look through the viewfinder or at the live view at all. I figured out on the Stellarium
app my phone where I wanted to point the camera, then aimed the green laser (after syncing the laser and camera on the north star), then took a test shot, downloaded to phone, plate-solved and adjusted till aim achieved. It was far easier than trying to look through the viewfinder and figure out where I'm pointed. Focused through Bahtinov mask, 40 darks & 40 flats. Took photos of the Heart Nebula and the Great Galactic Face in Markarian's Chain of galaxies.
Center (
RA,
Dec): (38.105, 61.368)
Center (
RA, hms): 02h 32m 25.087s
Center (
Dec, dms): +61° 22' 04.363"
Size: 2.52 x 1.68 deg
Radius: 1.513 deg
Pixel scale: 4.72 arcsec/pixel
