A very clear night

I now set up the telescope in the daylight, making sure the software is detecting the mount and the tracking cam. Once it is dark, I polar align the mount (hardly any adjustment needed usually). I then use 3 stars to align the mount , start taking the darks and check the tracking is ok. Then I can start getting the data I want.

Having decided to go for IC1396 in Cepheus, it turned out to be so close to the meridian it would require a 'meridian flip' - bad idea!. So I started with the Pleiades again. A change from previous sessions and showing my  'tracking confidence', I decided to go for 300s exposures. Compare this image with the previous one, based on 180 s exposures:

The Pleiades Open Cluster in Taurus

This is a cropped image. Despite taking flats, darks and bias,  the images  still show some vignetting. This might be because I changed the ISO when taking the bias  and flats. Note to self not to do it next time and see if that improves things

The main target, as I said above, was IC 1396 , a very large emission nebula in Cepheus. This contains within the 'famous' Elephant's Trunk nebula. plus a number of dark nebula.

Emission Nebula IC1396 (part of ) in Cassieopeia

I am not sure what caused the artefact top right, but overall I am pretty pleased with the image. There are several dark nebulae clearly visible  (clouds of dust blocking light from the stars behind). The Elephant's Trunk is centre bottom. The nebula is too bog to be captured with one field of view, but this is a good first try!