[AlexN]

These are the beginnings of my August projects.

I'm on leave from work for the next 10 days so the mount is set up in the yard and staying that way until I go back to work. Hopefully in 10 days I can amass a decent amount of data for each of these.

In any case..

M16:
This one is only 8x 300s exposures at this point. 40 darks, -15c

NGC-253:
Currently at 30x 300s. 40 darks, -15c

I had hoped to get more of 253 before I packed it in at 3:50am but I saw orion enter the sky for the first time since I got back into astrophotography. I've not pointed a scope at orion since 2009. So I simply had to run 30 minutes of data on the trap before bed.

I had a bit of a late start last night. Helped getting kids to bed before setting up, then deciding to change scopes before starting imaging, then discovering that my camera won't come to focus in the 8" newt with adaptive optics fitted, so I had to do some quick surgery on the camera prior to commencing.

I'll be cutting down the 8" today and reinstalling the AO-7 unit prior to imaging tonight.


Hoping to get an earlier start tonight and hoping to hit 10hrs per target by Friday. I have no western view from my yard. So I can only image to about 1hr past the meridian.



EDITS :
Added image of NGC-253 with added data captured with AO and rejected 5.4hrs of data affected by skyglow and poor seeing.
Added final image of M16 with 5hrs 20m exposure.