After far too long away from the night sky I pointed my ED80 and camera heavenward on the weekend to capture these two.
M42 is a stack of a handful of 10sec and 30sec exposures though I'm not happy with the focus. Only remembered how to work the focus graphing in DSLR Focus after I'd taken these - doh! Also, haven't got around to mounting my Bartinov masks on anything I can use. Nor did I have enough extra weights to try out my autoguider.
Pretty slack efforts I realise but was happy to be out there just giving it a go because I felt so rusty.
Nothing to laugh about. They're both perfect shots. Just need more data on M42 but focus and tracking are spot on. You're already there. Keep'em coming.
And gee Darren, I notice you have a bit more gear than the last time I looked! When we first met you only had a dob and that was only a blink of an eye ago!!! Great photos BTW - something to aspire to
Yes Mate, The learning curve and equipment gathering has been an all consuming passion for the last little while. The amount of help and guidance I've received has been amazing. Hope you can make the next SV Camp, it would be great to catch up.
I'm in the middle of doing some concreting, managed to squeeze in a home for a permanent set up, so will be busy for a little while.
Can't wait till I can just walk out, open the roof and get straight into it!
The moon shot is quite good 
