Saturday night was a mostly good night. Dry, no wind, not excessively cold yet. The Moon was brighter that I wanted but what are you going to do?
I decided on shooting the Helix Nebula though it was fairly close to the Moon. The image is made from 132 one minute subs shot with my 11″ SCT at f/1.9 with an NBZ filter. The filter blocked most of the moonlight.
It was a good night at the River Ridge Observatory. I started with the Andromeda Galaxy (aka M31), shooting it with my 11″ SCT Elf at f/1.9 with an Antlia Triband RGB Ultra filter. Three hours of one minute subs auto-aligned and stacked by Sharpcap Pro.
Tomorrow was a work day but it was the first clear night in a while and I wanted to try out a new Antlia Triband RGB Ultra filter. This filter is designed to provide a more color balanced image than other light pollution filters. It is like a dual narrowband, which have two colors, but not quite as narrow perhaps but with a third channel to let blue in.
Monday night was warm but there was no breeze to shake the scope or dew until 3 AM or later. I didn’t plan to but stayed until 4:30 before packing up for the night. I shot five objects but one was disappointing (not the filter’s fault) so here are the other four in the order they were taken. Make sure you go all the way. Click for a larger image.
M20, the Trifid Nebula, and M21 aka Webb’s Cross, the cluster on the right. In Sagittarius.
M4, a globular cluster in Scorpius.
M16, the Eagle Nebula in Serpens with it’s “Pillars of Creation”.
IC 1396, the Elephant Trunk Nebula in Cepheus.
