another nice cluster

[raymo]

Another one for you Kevin; if it grabs you, [ and anybody else ].
I placed it right, in order to include the red star at left, but forgot
to crop the top.
raymo

[lazjen]

According to astrometry.net (http://nova.astrometry.net/user_images/184677#annotated) it looks like you've got NGC 3766 there.

What gear and exposure details are you using?

[raymo]

Hi lazjen, you are quite right, it is 3766. I enjoy looking for attractive
clusters and asterisms. I use an 8" Newt on an HEQ5. 1100D DSLR,
10 x 6sec subs @ ISO 6400, stacked in DSS. JPEGs with high ISO
noise reduction enabled, hence no separate darks. Also no further processing. As I have told anyone
who was interested, I am pushing 80 and struggling with the change
to digital, so am endeavouring to keep it simple.
raymo

[noeyedeer]

nice indeed .. not many people hunt down clusters and I like the pics .. probably more then nebs because they are so often done

nice work ... I might have to eyeball this when the skies clear. looks lovely

matt

[cometcatcher]

It is a lovely little open cluster, I'm an old time fan of this one.

To give you an idea of how widefield my little ED80 is Ray, here's a pic I took in the winter of 2012. I can even fit in the running chicken nebula IC2944 over to the right, the cluster to the left, although the nebula kind of steals the show in photos. Visually, the cluster is nicer, especially in the 16" dob.

It's a bit small to image with my short refractors, but I'm trying to get something going with longer focal length to image 'em better. Once I get a new focuser for my 6" F6 newt it will be better framed I think.

[raymo]

Nice shot. My 80mm is only an achro, so I'm limited to less bright
objects as far as imaging goes.I assume that your ED 80 is around
450mm f/l, so if you used prime focus but added a 2x barlow you would
get 900 or so mm. My posted shot was 1000mm plus barlow, so you would get a shot about half the size of mine, which would be acceptable.
Obviously you could also use EP projection.
raymo

[cometcatcher]

Yeah my ED80 is only 440mm f/L but I've never had any success with a barlow on deep sky. It works great on the moon but not deep sky. I get better results prime focus with my C90 which is 1000mm f/L but a sloooow F11. Here in the tropics, slow kills the shot with noise. But that little cluster might just be bright enough...

[raymo]

Go on, have a go.
raymo

[cometcatcher]

I will at first opportunity! But the sky doesn't look good for tonight. I was surprised last night was clear.

Ray, have you taken a digital shot of NGC3532 the wishing well cluster yet? It's my favourite visual open cluster of all time. I remember the first time I saw it was waaay back in about 1976 through my shiny new Tasco 80mm F15 refractor.

[raymo]

I'm working my way along from Crux, so would have got there shortly.
I'll give it a go soon, thanks.
raymo