Captured M42 on Tuesday night for the first time this summer down at my weekender south coast NSW. Conditions were a bit hazy and seeing was poor around 9.00pm but improved around 10.30pm so took the opportunity to do some imaging after a 6 week lull due to the terrible fires across the whole state
8” f5 Bintel newt
EQ6-R Mount
32 x 3 minute dithered guided subs
20 x darks
Canon 600D with Baader coma corrector
Home made cooling fan ( sensor running at 22 degrees )
PHD2 guiding ( 0.75 to 0.85 arc sec error )
Captured with BYEOS
Goto and tracking EQMOD, Stellarium Scope and Stellarium
Stacked in DSS
Processed in Startools ( forgot to take some 30 sec subs to use the Layer module to expose the trap )
Next morning the whole area was smoked out with ash falling for an hour or so until the southerly kicked in ( a lucky 6 hour window that night to capture this image )
Thanks All for the kind comments
I was so lucky to snag a 6 hour imaging window in between all the smoke and haze. I think it was more like 7 weeks since the last time I had a scope out
PHD2 guiding was as good as gets for this rig , it was a pleasure to watch the guiding graph, even with an aggressive dither, Dec recovered so quickly. These EQ6-R mounts are superb considering they are classed as low end Chinese mounts and carrying nearly 15kg on board
Some family time now for the next couple of weeks
Merry Xmas to all and a happy new year
