I went astronomy camping with a couple of buddies this past Thursday and Friday night (April 8-9, 2021) to a
Bortle 2 or 3 location that is about 1 hour south of Las Vegas. I was the only person imaging, the rest were visual only, so we were far enough south of the Vegas light bubble to have really nice skies to the east, south, and west.
On Thursday, our first night was a complete bust with unpredicted winds in the neighborhood of 15mph. Here in the desert that puts a lot of dust up into the air so we hunkered down in our tents and didn't even bother breaking out the scopes.
We are finally all three vaccinated so this was the first time we have gotten together for any reason in over a year so the bad weather didn't put a damper on our time together.
Our second night turned out really well and using
NINA I managed to capture 4 globulars and M57, the Ring Nebula. Building the sequence in
NINA and letting her take care of everything was really nice as I was able to shut the computer screen off, allow my eyes to dark adapt, and enjoy some spectacular sites including watching the Summer Milky Way rise this morning for the first time this year. A clear view to the south even allowed us to do some visual work on Centarus A and Omega Centarus. At 11° and 7° above the horizon respectively. Even so low to the horizon, they were both a spectacular sight!
This brings my
Messier count up to 76 now in my official forum gallery.
https://www.alnitakproductions.com/Priv ... r-Project/
All details are identical for each image:
Explore Scientific ED127mm
APO w/.7x reducer/flattener
ASI ZWO1600mm camera, Offset 10, Gain 139, -10° below ambient.
Baader Filters, CGX Mount, captured with
NINA.
10x 60 seconds, Luminance
10x 120 seconds,
RGB ea.
Total Integration time = 70 minutes
Processed with
Astro Pixel Processor.
M14, also known as
NGC 6402 is a Globular cluster in Ophiuchus.
M53, also known as
NGC 5024 is a Globular cluster in
Coma Berenices.
M68, also known as
NGC 4590 is a Globular cluster in Hydra.
M92, also known as
NGC 6341 is a Globular cluster in Hercules.
And finally, M57, The Ring Nebula, also known as
NGC 6720 is a Planetary Nebula in Lyra.
I'm not thrilled with this one and will work on it again in the future. One of these days I'll have the focal length needed for these tiny planetary nebulae and galaxies.
Greg M.~ "Ad Astra per Aspera"
Scopes: Celestron EdgeHD14", Explore Scientific ED152CF & ED127 APO's, StellarVue SV70T, Classic Orange-Tube C-8, Lunt 80mm Ha double-stack solar scope.
Mounts: Astro-Physics Mach One, iOptron CEM70EC Mount, iOptron ZEQ25 Mount.
Cameras: ZWO ASI2600mm Pro, ZWO 2600MC Pro, ZWO ASI1600mm
Filters: 36mm Chroma LRGB & 3nm Ha, OIII, SII, L-Pro, L-eXtreme
Eyepieces: 27mm TeleVue Panoptic, 4mm TeleVue Radian, Explore Scientific 82° 30mm, 6.7mm , Baader 13mm Hyperion, Explore Scientific 70° 10mm, 15mm, 20mm, Meade 8.8mm UWA
Software: N.I.N.A., SharpCapPro, PixInsight, PhotoShop CC, Phd2, Stellarium
https://www.nevadadesertskies.com