Lo and
behold, we got a second clear-ish night.
There were a lot of high clouds, but I was kind of able to image some
stuff. We didn’t even check whether the
gate was unlocked, since we didn’t want to have to leave early, so we set up in
the new spot outside the observatory gate. I read a little more on all-star polar
alignment, and I guess I don’t have to align to Polaris first, I just have to
be kinda close. So I tried that this
time, and the pictures still came out with little drift, especially because
there was no wind at all.
M64 Black Eye Galaxy, Nikon D3100 on my C11, f/6.3 focal reducer
19x15s & 11x30s, ISO-3200
I started
imaging the Needle Galaxy too, but it was behind some high clouds. Then Uncle Chris messaged me one of his CCD
images from the night before of galaxy pair M65 and M66, and I had to try! It took me a bit to find them both in the
same frame, but I finally did, and it was in a relatively clear patch of sky. I took 70 images, but only 24 didn’t have too
much cloud or drift. When I stacked with
the flats from Saturday, it came out super weird for some reason, like there
are multiple rings, but this might be due to varying light levels with the
clouds and the appearance of the moon or something. So I’ll definitely image this again on the
next night, since I need more data to get some good detail on those two
galaxies.
M65 & M66 (two of the Leo Triplet), Nikon D3100 on my C11, f/6.3 focal reducer
22x30s, ISO-3200
[The "multiple rings" effect came from me driving up the contrast too much, and basically you are seeing the central obstruction - aka, the secondary mirror - of my C11.]
Next post: #34 - Friday, May 6, 2016 - Outreach!
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Next post: #34 - Friday, May 6, 2016 - Outreach!
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