Planning seems important in astro-imaging.   Last night I set up my gear with the Tak on the Sirius mount.   I got out earlier than usual to balance the RA and DEC with the scope slightly front heavy.   (And the RA slightly weight (bottom) heavy.)

I let everything cool down for two hours, then setup the computer and connected all the cables. 
I haven't even gotten the Eqmod and focuser cables figured out and it already seems like there are too many cables wrapped around the scope.   Part of planning is to move the scope toward the part of the sky that will be targeted for the night.  It's important to do this so to prevent/anticipate any potential cable snags while imaging for 2-3+ hours.

Originally, I was planning on shooting the Rosette Nebula (N2237, etc).  But by 9 PM, the Rosette was already at the Meridian.   Only an hour after meridian, it began to impinge upon Flagstaff's light pollution dome.   Though the light pollution wasn't horrible, it does create gradients in the image that causes problems when post-processing.

There are lots of great nebular targets that lie generally in the plane of the Milky Way.   The problem is that during winter, those targets tend to be located in the West.   So, I don't have a lot of time to image those targets because they are already setting by the time I get started.   There's always this frantic race to get everything setup and ready to go by evening twilight.   Of course, this would be partly alleviated by an observatory since setup time would be trivially short.   But I digress.

The answer lies obviously in proper planning.   The better time to image these nebular targets would be summer into late fall.  

So, based on these reflections and the fact that Leo and Virgo are better placed, I had planned to shoot the Leo Trio (M65, M66, and N3628).    I decided to get better polar alignment using the "DLSR method" with 190 sec exposures (10 sec stationary, 90 sec with the left arrow on the mount keypad and 90 sec with  the right arrow on the mount keypad).    I always underestimate how long this will take.  I always think it shouldn't take more than 45 minutes.  But in actuality, it takes like 1.5 hours if I'm going fast.    If I really want to nail polar alignment, I need to plan for 2.5-3 hours of work.  (This obviously affects your imaging plan for the evening.)

[Added later:  I had used the battery while doing the DLSR polar alignment.  And I noticed when I connected to Backyard EOS that my camera temps were in the 30's (Celsius)).  Yikes.  I switched to the AC plug in and the temps came down into the teens within a few minutes.  That battery and screen really push the temps.]

It wasn't until 10:40 that I was ready to image.  I slewed to M65 and took a test shot.   It was really NOISY.  I looked up and immediately saw the cause.  High clouds had rolled in and blanketed the sky under a haze.   Orion looked fuzzy.   I waited an hour and checked the IR weather images.  It looked like a small bank of clouds had floated from the West into central AZ.    But the northern part of the state remained mostly clear.   And that part of the sky looked promising. 

So, I went back out and slewed the scope onto M101 in Ursa Major.    Took a short test exposure.  Then I decided to do an experiment:  I shot M101 for 20 minutes at 400 ISO.   I had switched the autoguider to take 3 sec exposures (due to M65 being harder to image) and hadn't changed the QHY back to 2 secs (my normal time).   The stars looked slightly oval with a small tip on one side.  Overall, it looked okay.    I anticipate taking longer exposures (30+ minute in H-a) so I wanted to see how 20 would turn out.    There were clearly two potential issues/fixes:  1)  Taking the QHY camera back to 2 sec exposures; and 2) Rebalancing the scope/weights.   The rig was actually west heavy.   (It should be East heavy.)

Encouraged by the 20 min shot, I set up Backyard EOS to do a 9 shot series of 10 min. exposures.  I picked 9 because the moon was going to be up around 1:30 AM and it was already a few minutes past midnight.

I fell asleep on the couch and didn't get back out until 2:30.  It was already done and I glanced at the last two subframes which looked fantastic on the screen.   I kept thinking that if I could do a 4 hour run, I would have some real data. 

The other thing here to note is that proper planning gives  you leeway in case  you can't image on a particular night.  If your target is somewhere in the East when you begin, then you can still go for it a day or week or month later.  But if your target is already in the West, you may not be able to image it in a month.  

Bah.   Maybe this is all too obvious.