Well, the skies cleared up tonight but I should have stayed home. Firstly, I left my jack for my PC power cord at home, so couldn't guide. Secondly, even if I could have guided, the wind maintained very strong gusts through the night. I didn't want to leave without imaging something, so decided to shoot the Beehive. It was pretty bright and didn't really need long exposures, so shot several two-minute frames to stack. Above is the resulting image. Not bad, considering. I am going to try for this weekend if the conditions get better. The wind here is nuts, though - so persistent.
Imaging Details:
- Imaging Scope: Astrotelescopes 80mm ED Refractor
- Imaging Camera: Nikon D7000
- Guiding Scope: William Optics 66mm Petzval Refractor
- Guiding Camera: Meade DSI-C
- Mount: Celestron CGEM
- Exposures: 8 * 10 minute lights
- ISO 640
- Aligned and Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker
- Post-Processing in GIMP (contrast, saturation and unsharp mask)
- Noise Reduction in NeatImage
