my first decent go at imaging

[A23649 (Nathan)]

For a while now I have been fiddling around trying to find the south pole for polar alignment and finally I got it so I moved the scope to the lagoon nebula and started shooting images and boy was i pleased when it had pinpoint stars! So I have attached a stacked image that I fiddled about a bit with Iphoto and has been shrunk to fit on my phone.

Nathan

32 x 30 second exposures for a total time of 32 minutes
ISO 1600
Canon 1000D
8" f/4 newt
EQ5
Synguider
Orion guidescope package

[Alchemy (Clive)]

Definitely a recognizable M8.

That SCP can be a rotten thing to find at times, not like in the northern hemisphere where a bright star sits bang smack on it.

[CapturingTheNight (Greg)]

I thought I would see you pop up on here sooner or later Nathan. As I said on DeviantArt congratulations on finding the polar allignment. It was certainly a frustrating experience for myself when I was first doing it.

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

Congrats on finally getting it all working together.

[Bassnut (Fred)]

You need to learn Photoshop, its half the battle. Not that my 20sec tweak is much good, but you get the idea.

[jenchris (Jennifer)]

Ah the old alignment trick - took me two hours the first time as my pier is a bit tall and i had to keep walking up a ladder to check where I was and then the laptop for the co-ords!
Well now that you're hooked, you'll get much better at it!
By the way 32x30 is 16.....

[Poita (Peter)]

Great stuff, I'm yet to get Polar Alignment right with my EQ6, but I keep on trying

You may want to get a bahtinov mask or similar to held tighten up the focus, I found it a great and really cheap tool.

[A23649 (Nathan)]

thank you for all the nice comment everybody and i am a little embarrassed by my mathematical mistake (i am in the top level math class). when it clears up, hopefully tonight i will try again on perhaps a different target but i will tweak the current one in photoshop elements 6 for the moment.once again thank you everybody!