November Clear Skies
We had plenty of clear skies during the first half of November, but man, it was cold! Fortunately, I can now operate the telescope from indoors once it’s polar aligned. I was able to get three nice photos before our fall/winter weather started rolling in.
First things first. I upped my imaging game by investing in Sequence Generator Pro and a Pegasus Astro FocusCube. I also bought an Astro Pixel Processor license for my initial image stacking and processing.
So let’s look at some deep space objects. All of these image were taken with a ZWO ASI178MC-Cool one-shot color camera mounted to a William Optics GT81 refractor. Capturing was accomplished with Sequence Generator Pro and guiding by PHD2.
Messier 74 (NGC 628), The Phantom Galaxy
The Phantom Galaxy, M74. November 17-18, 2018
I’d been chasing M74 for a couple of weekends, but things finally came together on the night of November 17-18. I ended up with a total integration time of 7 hours, 42 minutes - my longest to date. M74 is a dim galaxy, at magnitude 10. It’s some 30 million light years out and is made up of an estimated 100 billion stars.
NGC 281, Tha Pacman Nebula
The Pacman Nebula, NGC 281. November 11-12, 2018
I was able to image the Pacman Nebula for a total of 3 hours and 12 minutes on the night of November 11-12. Up to that point, it was my longest imaging session.
Messier 42 (NGC 1976), The Orion Nebula
The Orion Nebula, NGC 1976. November 17, 2018
As I was going out to shut the telescope down early in the morning of November 17, I saw the constellation Orion shining so bright that I had to fire up the camera for one more session. This image is made up of a mere 60 minutes of exposures.
So that was my November. I consider this my most productive month of astrophotography. Not only was I able to get three images that I’m quite happy with, I learned new software and processes that get me up and running quickly. In my next blog post, I’ll talk about the software and what works for me.