Even when I was at top form, I rarely hit more than 2 objects per night. There is a certain amount of overhead associated with changing targets; picking up a new guide star, centering the target object, and, of course, the fact you have to stay awake until the old target is done in the first place.
The workflow with the manually-rotating dome means that things need to be tended a lot more closely, the dome usually needs to be moved at least once an hour (although there are a magic set of declinations where this is not the case), and with the guiding just sort of working, and the GOTOs all spot-on, I found that it was easier to get started on new targets than usual.
So, what with one thing or another, I picked up four (count ’em) targets last night, each with at least an hour of exposure!
I started the evening in Taurus, with a naked-eye favorite, M45, The Pleiades. This open cluster of young, blue stars, appears embedded in nebulosity, the blue color is reflected starlight, rather than excited Hydrogen that is the trademark of emission nebulae.
I had a few bloopers, or else the M45 stack would have been 2 hours instead of 1. Two frames were ruined because I failed to move the dome quickly enough, and the third because the object started heading over the house (which creates a lot of atmospheric turbulence, due to the heat and the lights and stuff).
I shifted the scope back to the East a bit, and picked up one of my favorite targets, the huge and lovely Rosette Nebula, in Monoceros the Unicorn.
I’d like to see if I can use some of the Ha data I’ve taken in the past, to bring up a little more detail. I pulled in 1h 20m before it, too, went over the house (and ran into the only cloud in the sky — grumble).
Once you get out of the galactic plane, it’s all galaxies off in deep space. The next target is, believe it or not, the 5th largest galaxy visible from Washington (behind Milky Way, Andromeda, M33, and M101).
Once M81 started getting past zenith, I moved East one last time, by this point Virgo was well up (note I started the night in Taurus… Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, almost halfway across the sky). I pointed at a random large galaxy in the Virgo Cluster (the area is sick with galaxies, our local neighborhood), M87.
By the time I got M87 running, I was a bit tired, so I napped a little while an hour of images ran off. Then, rather than move the dome one last time, I decided to turn in.
With all these images, I have a great blooper reel, too. But that’s another show.
Thank you, astronomy gods, for a beautiful clear night.
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