Not the most ooooo-inspiring target, but I had not seen it before, let alone tried photographing it. Apparently its a really interesting globular cluster since it barely has the correct characteristics. IT has a shorted of RR Lyrae stars and not a lot of metals. So, for a long time it was thought to be an open cluster. After some photometric surveys, it was clear that this was a mere baby of a globular cluster, maybe only 9-10 billion years old, instead of more like 12,000,000,000 years old!
So, notes on the night...
Balancing the telescope is definitely a good idea, likewise making sure the power lead stays attached. also discovered that letting the intervalometer hang by the cable from the camera (while I was trying to do something else quickly) is not a good idea; it separates at the connector and then falls... luckily it still works.
The sky really is too bright, especially with the moon approaching full. So, the image looks very 'thin' compared to others on the Internet. It will be interesting to compare this image with some taken later in the summer when the skies are darker.
I think the telescope mount works best when the scope is aimed above 45 degrees from horizontal; I can take 210 second unguided exposures then, but when it was aimed at M71, at about 45 degrees, several of the 60 second subs showed either a bit of a trail or double (slippage?). I will explore this further.
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