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I've waited all week for this evening, knowing that my clear sky clock was blue through and through. The moon and weather just right, I took the scope out at 4PM. I installed a battery in my homemade powertank, put my mount on the marks, powered it up, did a reset, calibration and train drives, mounted the DSLR piggyback, focused it on Jupiter using the live view, and set out with a pad of paper to do some imaging and viewing. I prepped a pot of chili in the crockpot (good warm up food), brewed a pot of coffee, took the heating pad and a deck chair outside, and at dark I ran my alignment routines and got busy grabbing images.
The first image (above) is M31, shot with 10 lights at 2 minutes, 10 darks, and using a 55mm focal length at f/5.6 ISO 800 - I cropped and resized this image to obtain the best looking scale I could, and did some minimal processing using the Digital Photo Professional software included with the Canon XS.
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The second image is the Double Cluster in Perseus shot with all the same information as above, cropped slightly and resized for posting purposes.
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Finally I shot a sequence of photos of the Pleiades, again 20 minutes total exposure at f/5.6, 55mm, and I am completely shocked to see that it captured some of the region's blue nebulosity. This is one object that I will return to later and obtain much more frames just to see what I can do with it on a stock camera lens. Simply amazing to me.
It was really neat to sit back and watch it all work, scope performing flawlessly, a mix of viewing and imaging, all the electronics in action, everything doing well as planned, the perfect harmony of technology and beauty in action. I am so pleased with the way this all works and it's not an accident, it is exactly what I wanted and demonstrates the results of my grand plan. I refuse to become equipment laden and top heavy. I know what I like, I know what I don't want, and often simplicity and functionality trump everything, especially on a cold evening of astronomy. It has all come together, and I love it.
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