Some clusters from last night's cloud gap shoot

[cometcatcher]

With digital I am always amazing what can be done with such limited sky. These pics were taken through small gaps in the clouds. More often than not the sky was overcast with the gaps at longest lasting maybe a minute or two. With film, pics under these circumstances were simply not possible.

I'm also enjoying the new Skywatcher ED100 refractor. It's so easy to use, no collimation, it's ready to shoot at short notice. For some reason, for star clusters it actually goes deeper by about half a mag than my 6 inch Newtonian. And you can really pixel peep deep into the frame. Field stars down to about magnitude 17. I'd like another magnitude or two. ;)

M22, 55 x 30 seconds, ISO 3200, Pentax K-x, Baader UV/IR cut filter. Running at F9.
Bigger at Astrobin. http://astrob.in/100044/0/

M62, a cute little glob in Ophiuchus. Only 21 x 30 seconds, ED100 F9.
Astrobin - http://astrob.in/100045/0/

Centered on two very tiny mag 9.5 / 8.6 globs NGC6528 and NGC6522 towards the center of the galaxy. The bright star in the field is the top star in the Teapot, Alnasl. These look very cute in the 16" dob. This frame using an Orion Focal Reducer for an F ratio of F7.2. Only 16 x 30 seconds at ISO1600. Needs mega data.

Astrobin - http://astrob.in/100046/0/

[200f4]

good star colour in M62 Kev

[cometcatcher]

Thanks Geoff.

[raymo]

Great job Kevin, the curtain of red stars really give it a nice 3D effect.
raymo

[cometcatcher]

Thanks Ray. There's so many clusters in the area to explore...