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Last Thursday, 03/16, we were lucky enough to have clear skies all evening. It's my first clear night out since late January! I've been wanting to try capturing Centaurus A which is a very tough target from my location, Las Vegas, NV. I drove about an hour south of town to one of my favorite dark sky locations and set up to make this attempt. Since Centaurus A only reaches a maximum elevation from this location of 11° as it crosses the meridian, I planned to shoot an hour on either side of the meridian when it reaches 9° on the east side and until it hits 9° on the west side. That meant not starting till around 1 am local time. Since I set up just before sunset, I had time to knock out a few more Messier objects for my Messier project. M3 was not the first target I shot but numerically, it came up first today while processing. I'll also be sharing M46, M47, and M48 as they are finished processing. Since I knew I wouldn't have much time on Centaurus A, I decided to shoot with the color camera. So for these 4 Messier targets, I used the same setup.
Explore Scientific ED152 CF APO
Explore Scientific 3" 0.7x Reducer/Flattener
ZWO ASI 2600mc Pro (0°, Gain 100, Offset 50)
iOptron CEM70EC mount
30x60sec subs = 30min
Captured with NINA 2.1 HF1 RC009
Processed with PixInsight
Messier 003
Messier 046 & Planetary Nebula NGC 2438
30x120sec subs = 1 Hour
============================================================================= I drink tea, I read books, I look at stars when I'm not cursing clouds. It's what I do. =============================================================================
AT50, AT72EDII, ST80, ST102; Scopetech Zero, AZ-GTi, AZ Pronto; Innorel RT90C, Oberwerk 5000; Orion Giantview 15x70s, Vortex 8x42s, Navy surplus 7x50s, Nikon 10x50s
Wow a clear night. I've forgotten what those are like. Great progress on the Messier list. How close are you to finishing? Like the little planetary in M46.
Scopes: Esprit 100, 12.5" Telekit Dob Camera: 294 MC Pro, 224 mc, 2600mm Guiding: ZWO 290 mini on 120mm guide scope Mounts: EQ6R-Pro, EQ Platform. Filters: Optolong L-Pro & L-Enhance, Chroma 36mm LRGB, 5nm HA, 3nm OIII, 3nm SII. Software: SharpCap, SGP, StarTools 1.7, Photoshop, Pixinsight The Death Star Observatory Astro Photos:https://www.astrobin.com/users/starfield/
-Michael Refractors: ES AR152 f/6.5 Achromat on Twilight II, Celestron 102mm XLT f/9.8 on Celestron Heavy Duty Alt Az mount, KOWA 90mm spotting scope Binoculars: Celestron SkyMaster 15x70, Bushnell 10x50 Eyepieces: Various, GSO Superview, 9mm Plossl, Celestron 25mm Plossl Camera: ZWO ASI 120 Naked Eye: Two Eyeballs Latitude: 48.7229° N
Gordon
Scopes: Explore Scientific ED80CF, Skywatcher 200 Quattro Imaging Newt, SeeStar S50 for EAA.
Mounts: Orion Atlas EQ-g mount & Skywatcher EQ5 Pro.
ZWO mini guider.
Image cameras: ZWO ASI1600 MM Cool, ZWO ASI533mc-Pro, ZWO ASI174mm-C (for use with my Quark chromosphere), ZWO ASI120MC
Filters: LRGB, Ha 7nm, O-III 7nm, S-II 7nm
Eyepieces: a few.
Primary software: Cartes du Ciel, N.I.N.A, StarTools V1.4.
Hello Greg. A delightful gallery of Messier images from your session. Excellent contrast and nice star fields in all of these captures. For me, the favorite is the globular cluster M3. Thanks for sharing this work with us on here Greg and congratulations on receiving the much deserved TSSAPOD Award.
Marshall
Sky-Watcher 90mm f/13.8 Maksutov-Cassegrain on motorized Multimount
Orion Astroview 120ST f/5 Refractor on EQ3 mount
Celestron Comet Catcher 140mm f/3.64 Schmidt-Newtonian on alt-az mount
Celestron Omni XLT150R f/5 Refractor on CG4 mount with dual axis drives.
Orion 180mm f/15 Maksutov-Cassegrain on CG5-GT Goto mount.
Orion XT12i 12" f/4.9 Dobsonian Intelliscope.
Kamakura 7x35 Binoculars and Celestron SkyMaster 15x70 Binoculars. ZWO ASI 120MC camera.
>)))))*>
starfield wrote: ↑Mon Mar 20, 2023 3:57 pm
Great progress on the Messier list. How close are you to finishing?
Technically, I have 98 so far which you can see here. https://www.alnitakproductions.com/Priv ... /n-8LWgwB/
But there are quite a few that are just short luminance-only images that I'm calling placeholders for a real image.
I'm really only happy with about 35 of them. It's really hard to dedicate so much time to many of those open clusters and what I call boring subjects like M40.
