M42 Orion Nebula

Taken last week during a week night and it was a last minute decision. The clouds went away right after dark...

8 sec. thru 5 minutes 10 subs each
AT66ED
80MM Meade
EQ-6
Home made side by side
EQMOD
PHD
DSIc
900NCP
No Darks or Flats
Extras: Amp Glow :(

Asteroid VESTA

This gif image is two shots taken approx. 1 hour apart.

Click on the image to start the animation!

AT66ED
DSIc
EQ-6

MARS

Our first cloudless night in a looong time.

800 Stacked frames
10" Reflector
EQ-6
Phillips 900
Seeing 3/5 at best

NGC 7000 and M33

It seems that the only time it's not cloudy, is when the moon is nearly full..

What I like about these two images the most is that a few months ago I purchased a couple of 16' USB repeater cables, finally decided to try them out and captured both of these from the comfort of my home. I just daisy chained them to the mount and ran the cables underneath the back door to my laptop. It was 22deg. outside, but I was wearing shorts and enjoying my favorite beverages in 70deg temps...

NGC7000 Gulf Region

M33

8x5.5min. 8-Darks 15-Flats
AT66ED
80mm guide scope
Home made side by side
DSIc Mono option
SPC900NC
EQ-6 (EQMOD)
PHD
DSS*PixInsight LE*PSE 2.0

M27 and my AT66ED

We got back home from our Thanks Giving family visit in Oklahoma, just in time for me to set up the imaging rig Friday Night. The moon was 78% full, a real pain again, so I stayed with a brighter object...

M27 Dumbbell Nebula
11X339sec. 10 Darks 15 Flats No Bias
Processed by DSS*PSE*PixInsight LE
AT66ED
Meade 80mm guide scope
DSIc (Monochrome option)
Philips SPC900NC web guide cam
PHD
EQ-6 (EQMOD)

I'm really liking this little refractor, I just need another camera to compliment it.

DSIc Monochrome Images

It's been 22 straight nights of clouds and or rain and I just couldn't stand it any longer. So I set up the imaging rig and shot around and sometimes through the clouds for about 2hrs. The clouds rolled in big time as I was capturing M33, too bad I couldn't have got another 45mins of data or so...

M33
6X339sec. AT66ED PHD guided EQMOD


Western Veil
6X339sec. AT66ED PHD guided EQMOD


M45
6X339sec. AT66ED PHD guided EQMOD

Polar Aligned Finally!

After what seemed like months of clouds and rain, I was finally able to get the imaging gear out and finish polar aligning the mount. I used a CCD Drift Method illustrated by J. Hall of The University of California-Irvine. Here is a quick 5 total minutes of a slightly out of focus M42, un-guided under a nearly full moon…



This is 3x8min. guided subs of the Bubble Nebula. It looks horrible and not worth processing, but I was only interested in producing round stars...