I haven't done much astronomy at all, pending getting new equipment. Finally, I have purchased a second hand Skywatcher Evostar 80ED apochromatic refractor. This is much lighter than the (now sold as a dobsonian) Altair 8 inch reflector. I have carried out two observing sessions and the auto-guiding is much improved. Once a target star is selected, it will carry on tracking (unless a cloud gets in the way!).
Some results of the first session are here:
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| Andromeda Galaxy M32 |
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| Ring Nebula in Lyra |
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The region around Sadr in Cygnus
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As you can see, thye are better than previous images; these were al taken with 60 second exposures, but unfortunately I messed up the flats, hence the vignetting. There was also a lot of light pollution.
The second session was my first attempt at using a filter. I had bought a UHC filter some time ago but had never used it since the main problem I was having was auto-guiding. So, now that is solved, the issue is getting long exposures. So, I attached the UHC filter next to the Nikon camera ring adaptor and took 180 second exposures. For a target, I tried the Veil Nebula in Cygnus (NGC 6960). I had tried this once before (this picture is the first one!!)
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| Veil Nebula - 8inch reflector on poorly tracking mount |
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| Veil Nebula - 80mm refractor on properly tracking mount |
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