Ad Astra Observatory

This is the first time that I’ve been able to catch this object. The autumn nebulae are elusive for some reason. But I figured I’d try it before it dips below the NCP, and, well, here it is.

Pumpkin did a little better tonight at unguided, I think. Same 5m subframes, still need them to be longer before I’m going to get any great images out. But essentially all the 5m subframes are usable (except the ones that get clouded out).

I tried 10m subframes, too; here is the result of that attempt. The stars are slightly trailed at 10m. I was going to try some 7m frames too, but ran out of sky before the run was up.

Notice Pumpkin has plenty of FOV to grab this big object.

Unlike my normal cropping, I needed to use 2100×1400 -> 900×600 this time, because 1500×1000 was too small to frame the object.

I doubt I’ll get another chance at this object for awhile, so it’s goot to get one in the can of it, so I can have something to look back and chuckle about later when I get “a real good one”.