I got my first shot I'm actually proud of last night. I gave the sculptor galaxy NGC253 a go, not expecting too much since the half moon was lighting things up, but I had nothing to lose... The attached picture is the result of 60 x 1min, 30 x 2min, 30 x 30sec and 15 x 3min subs, all shot with the NexStar 8SE on the CGEM mount, Canon 300D, all dark subtracted, stacked in Nebulosity 3 and levels & colours adjusted in PS.
Guided with NexGuide... I must have been spot on polar aligned too... All subs were round stars, and all in the same place in the frame.
I dare say this is my best image to date, couldn't believe the detail on it, anyway, had to share.
Short exposures are great!
Why? Because they show the inner high surface brightness regions of galaxies Very Well.
Your image shows a good suggestion of the bar structure and the two spiral arms in this galaxy, both of which are highly foreshortened, because the "Silver Coin" galaxy is like a coin seen nearly edge-on!
Poita, to polar align, I first roughly point the mount toward the SCP, then sky align the mount using a 2.5X powermate and the illuminated 12.5mm guiding eyepiece.
After the mount is aligned I pick the closest star to the northern ecliptic and use the CGEM polar alignment utility, again using the 2.5X powermate with the illuminated guiding eyepiece.
I sky align again to ensure that the alignment is as close as possible.
Worked for me two or three times, my subs upto 3 minutes had no star trails. I stack the images in nebulosity using the alignment and rotate feature just in case there is a slight field rotation after the full exposure time due to the mount being slightly off the SCP.
Now can't wait to get out there again. My replacement filter for the 300D arrived so I imagine I'm not too far away from giving narrowband/Hubble palette imaging a go.
