First light/last light

First light - The FLC observatory was unaccessible for a few weeks in January, but I did hike out to "rescue" the camera and tried a few shots with a Canon 50mm lens on the ST-10XE. This is a short series of 30 second, unguided, unfiltered exposures, just to check out possibilities. The camera was just stuck out the back door, which really limited my target options, but Orion was conveniently right there. Interestingly, the tree "looked" much darker than the sky from there, but I guess I don't see IR as well as the camera. I tried a few shots at different f-stops, starting at f1.4, and maybe shouldn't have been surprised at how "bad" things looked with the lens that wide. I think this was ~f4. I stretched as much as I could and sharpened a tiny bit and was surprised at how easy I could see the horse head and other stuff.

Last light - I originally thought I would get a chance to re-do this "right" with a clearer view, pay better attention to focus, get some good flats, try color, etc., but right now the camera is having some mechanical difficulties (shutter error) and I am afraid I will need to send it for repair. Maybe that is just to give me a chance to set up a more portable autoguiding system that could be ready when it gets back... But by then I will be able to get back to the observatory and start in again on my M82 color data.

Charlie

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Bummer about your camera Charles,hope you can get it taken care of without too much trouble.

Your FOV in the test exposures is great,this would be awesome with an Ha filter.

Looks like focus is soft on the left side compared to the rest of the image,maybe the lens is not quite orthogonal. This might be why it looks worse wide open too?

Good luck with the camera,

Jason

Not bad, Charles. Sorry to hear about your mechanical difficulties. Nice shot, though! I don't see the Horsehead, but I do see the flame.

Eric

Oh,blooms at 30 seconds.... that's a very sensitive camera Charles! hope you get It repaired soon and I'm sure you'll get some wonderful results from It before too long.

Love the field of view !