Patchwork moon with the RC8 & QHY5 cam

I have been dying to try out my new QHY5 guide camera with a bit of planetary and lunar image stacking. I've heard they give great results and I also wanted to put my 8" ritchey chretien to the test. Being a specialised scope for deep sky imaging I wasn't sure how well it would perform. I'm happy to report that it performs quite well. Below the result of two 2sec videos, stacked and stitched (stacked in registax, stitched in Photoshop)

As you can see, some dust on the telescope mirror did show up. Nothing a few flat frames won't fix, though. Next time I'm going for the whole moon!

OTA: 8" Ritchey Chrétien

Camera: QHY5

Mount: HEQ5

Exposures: 2x2sec .avi video

Processing: Registax
Post-processing: Photoshop

Ring Nebula M57/NGC 6720

What I love the most about this image is that we know that the faint star in the middle of this planetary nebula is actually the white dwarf which remains after the red giant star expelled it's mass. 

OTA: RC8 w/ TS OAG

Guiding: QHY5

Mount: HEQ5 Pro w/ EQMOD

Camera: Atik 16IC

ISO: N/A

Lights: 2x10min

Darks: N/A

Flats: N/A

Bias: N/A

Processing: Nebulosity

Post-processing: Photoshop

DSO 5 - M45 Pleiades Cluster (Colour)

A slight improvement in processing, and now in glorious Technicolor.

I managed to retain the colour information from the Nikon RAW NEF files by simply saving the images as TIFFs in Photoshop before processing them in Nebulosity.

OTA: WO 72mm Megrez w/ Moonlite Focuser & SkyWatcher FF & LPR Filter

Mount: HEQ5 Pro

Camera: Nikon D3100 14.2mp

ISO: 1600

Lights: 15x60sec

Darks: 15x60sec

Flats: None

Bias: None
Processing: Nebulosity
Post-processing: Photoshop

DSO 4 - M45 Pleiades Cluster

We got a nice clear night recently and I managed to get some pretty satisfactory
data of M45 to go with my new copy of Nebulosity.

I'm having a few initial niggles with processing the raw data from my Nikon D3100, but I'm quite pleased with what came out the other end.

OTA: WO 72mm Megrez w/ Moonlite Focuser & SkyWatcher FF & LPR Filter

Mount: HEQ5 Pro

Camera: Nikon D3100 14.2mp

ISO: 1600

Lights: 15x60sec

Darks: 15x60sec

Flats: None

Bias: None

Basically, my stacked results of M45 are coming out pretty much monochrome although the blue nebulosity is clearly visible in the raw images. I'm obviously doing something wrong in one of the steps. I'm following Craig Starks tutorials on the Stark website. Hopefully I'll be able to iron out these issues soon, and show the seven sisters in all their reflective nebulosity.

Also, part two of my Tenerife trip to come shortly. 

Apologies for the delay.

I owned a Newtonian for Three Days

I purchased a second hand 8" Ritchey Chrétien recently, but when delivery day came, I found that I had been sent one of those amazing, fast imaging Newtonian telescopes by mistake. It has since been sent back and I am now the proud owner of an RC8

However, the first thing I thought when I saw the Newtonian, was photo op! 

I wanted to post some pictures of the 8" Newtonian on my HEQ5 for one reason. When researching astronomy equipment, I quickly realised that there weren't very many images online of the kind of set-up I wanted. If someone is thinking of putting this telescope and this mount together, then perhaps these images might help them in making a decision  During the short time that I had the telescope, I noted that it could be very well balanced on the HEQ5. Though being quite a heavy telescope, the mount could more than handle the it. It also has the usual great build quality from GSO.

Apart from this being a little informative, what amateur astronomer doesn't love looking at others equipment photos online?

Thanks to Tom and Neil from Astronomia/Telescope Outlet for taking care of me.

DSO 2 - My First M31 Andromeda Galaxy Image

Last night we finally saw an end to the seemingly perminent grey weather and were blessed some some clear skies. I've been itching to give my Megrez 72 it's first imaging run and chose M31 as my target, as it was positioned very conveniently in the sky. Here are the results

OTA: WO 72mm Megrez w/ Moonlite Focuser

Camera: Nikon D3100 14.2mp

Mount: HEQ5 Pro

Exposures: 1

Exposure: 1min

ISO: 3200

My next goal is a guided image of M31 using an OAG and Orion Starshoot Autoguider.

I foresee that acquiring a guide star will prove difficult, as I learned last night while trying to use PHD. However, I'm sure with a little patience and luck I'll succeed.