The Orion Nebula 12/28/2018

On what might be the final clear night of the year, I set up my C11 (Elf) and used my Canon EOS t5 to take this picture. I used BackyardEOS to control the camera. This is 21 30 second images combined. I haven’t done deepsky other than with the stock lens of my camera in a long time and I’ve forgotten the techniques I once knew. The seeing Friday was not as bad as predicted but not great and focus was hard to come by. Once I worked through the details of acquisition, I got my images. After acquisition I remembered my focal reducer/corrector which would have helped, this is prime focus at f/10. Saturday morning I auto aligned in Photoshop and switched back to Lightroom for processing. Click image for a larger view.

12/23/2018 Comet P46/Wirtanen

I had my first opportunity to try to image the comet tonight. With a small window of opportunity before the Moon rose I traveled light and just set the DSLR on a tripod. This is a 30 second shot at ISO 6400. Maybe in a few days it will be clear again and I can use the SCT. The bright star at the top is Capella, the comet is a little lower and to the left.

Comet P46 Wirtanen in Aurigae

12/7/2018 – 15×70 Binoculars

I just got some 15×70 binoculars. Nominally for astronomy, I can see these being used for birding as well, mainly as an alternative to a spotting scope. The 70mm objectives will bring in a lot of light. For astronomy, I’ll use them with a parallelogram mount I built a couple years ago. For birding, with a conventional tripod. I arranged to have them delivered during Winter Storm Diego so that I can’t be blamed for the cloudy weather, it was already here.

LinkedIn
LinkedIn
Share