Van Vleck

Sorry for the long hiatus.   I had some images from a trip to Hull Cabin in April, but I was a little disappointed with the results so I didn't post them.

This August marked the second get-together at a cabin in Northern California with Charles.   Last year, it was a kind of discovery trip as I didn't really bring any imaging gear.    The skies at Van Vleck Bunkhouse are pretty good and since summer is monsoon season in Flagstaff, it afforded an opportunity to photograph and enjoy the summer constellations and "goodies" in the Milky Way.  We had 6 nights at the cabin and the weather held steady for a solid 5 nights.  For me the first night was getting back into the routine of polar aligning and it took me a pitiful 4-5 hours to get things right.   It wasn't until well into the second night that I finally felt I had all my ducks lined up.

But even on the second night, I didn't take many long exposures.  I finally got a series going on good 'ole M31, the Andromeda Galaxy:

This photo of M31 is a composite effort based upon 15 x 5 min shots and 15 x 1 min shots.   I used the Explore Scientific 80mm F/6 APO with a Televue .8x reducer/flattener.  I took darks, flats, bias shots and used Lightroom as well as Photoshop to process.   Images were stacked using Deep Sky Stacker 3.3.4.  For the whole week the scope was mounted in a dual-saddle configuration on an AP900 mount.   Guiding was done with an Orion 50mm Guidescope with a QHY5L-II autoguider.

Although I'm satisfied with the shot, during processing, I could see there's definitely faint detail to be culled around the edges of the galaxy.   I believe a series of long exposures (15 x 15 min ???) would give me the data I would need to really capture the halo outside the perimeter of the present image.

Toward the end of the night, I thought I'd point the scope at the Pleiades (M45) and see what I could get with 15 minutes of exposure.  Taken at 3:52 in the morning.  Sensor temp: 14 deg. Celsius.