[midnight (Darrin)]

Hi All,

Finally got the old rattler overhauled inside with new teflon bearings and a full polish inside & a new RA motor from a LXD75 (only $90). The mount will have to do until I save up enough to upgrade to something more capable for astrophotography but with some autoguiding help, it seems to be still ok for widefield.

Tonight I got the guiding much smoother so this was a test run but what exposures could anyone recommend for this lovelly region?

I am using a Meade LXD55 with a canon 40D piggybacked with a 50mm F1.4 and I find F4.0 is good for this lense. ISO is 400 and each frame is 180Sec. I stacked 4 frames with 6 dark frames and 6 flats using Al's VLB and Octane's recommendation for tissue paper on the lense aimed at the PC.

Light pollution is a problem in this shot but I intend to head out to my usual spot soon where I can go for about 5 minutes.

Any help would be most appreciated.

Cheers,
Darrin...