Last week I spent a few days at Eden on the south coast of NSW. I decided to take advantage of the dark skies offered by this rather isolated seaside town. Despite there being dark skies, I have come to the conclusion that a coastal locality does not always offer the most favourable conditions. The on shore breeze created humid conditions and brought in water vapour from the ocean. This lowered the transparency somewhat so even though seeing was quite good, the milky way did not glow with the vibrancy expected on such a clear night.
I imaged the first few mornings I was there after the waxing moon had set a few hours before dawn. This meant getting up about 3.00am and taking shots before the sun rose.
These shots were taken with my modded 550d mounted on a tripod and Sightron Nano Tracker. The widefields were taken with a cheap EF 50mm f1.8 lens @f3.5, 10 x 1 min subs @ 1600iso. The Carina close up was taken using a Tamron 500mm mirror lens @ f8, 10 x 30 secs, 3200iso.
Amazing pictures, but you can get more from 10x1 minute exposure @ f/2.5.
Two years ago I shot the same Scorpius area as photo 2 with 25x5 seconds with a steady camera w/85mm (f/2.5) and got more signal.
Probably reprocessing your subs would reveal even more data !
