Well.. I've pieced together a rig from entirely 2nd hand parts and last night I got my first few hours with a scope since 2013..
It's not much, and I suffered quite a few drifting clouds which caused the lovely gradient present here, but, I think that for my first night with all the new gear, I'll call this a success.
I lost 50% of my blue data to a (now resolved) differential flexture issue I didn't know existed, which for this target, kind of hurt...
Its a pretty heavy crop as a result of the gradient from the clouds rolling through much of the frame (almost every exposure was at least slightly cloud affected)
The conditions were clearing, but it was 1am on a work night, and I started losing subs to guiding issues that seemed very random (turned out to be gravity + insufficiently secured guiding hardware)... so I packed it in..
M45
15x300s L
4x300s R
4x300s G
2x300s B
10x Darks.
Askar PHQ65
SBIG ST8300M @ -20°C
Baader 36mm LRGB filters
30mm f/4 guider with ASI120MM Mini
Losmandy G11 Gemini
Captured in NINA + PHD2
Processed in GIMP
More to come!
EDIT:
Added more data, got my flats right and reprocessed.
15x300s L/R/G/B.
20x Darks
20x Flats per filter
20x Flat darks
Still struggling a little with a gradient. But I'm happy with this as my first image back from a 10 year hiatus.
Less compressed:
Astrobin