Last night M39

Just another back yard photo with lots of light pollution. But I was out testing the mount for accuracy at longer exposures and decided to take one picture or M39 at zenith. Used the new focusing masks to try to achieve prime focus. I feel it was close, though maybe not perfect. But it does seem that pinpoint stars are just not captured with these cameras. I have not seen one photo with a one shot camera that gives perfect fine pin point stars. So I am satisfied I guess.
I found that I will be able to take 10 minute exposures and this should allow me to do narrow band images too. 8 minutes might be a better idea, but I am told that 10 minutes is a good time.

Attached Image:

Floyd,
That's great that you're going ten minutes with nice round stars. These look good to me. But I was wondering which scope you shot this one with; if you're using a long focal length you will definitely not get the same stars you would with the same camera on something shorter. I know I cannot get the same tight stars with my SCT as I can on my 66mm refractor. It's really a matter of what you want to achieve on a given subject. If you want some tightening up of your stars, you could try a deconvolution filter or try the "rescale-before-stacking" technique Richard recently introduced to this forum.
But, once again, great job getting your rig up to speed! You images are looking terrific..
Larry

Nice work Floyd!
Keep at it! 8)

Weather might cooperate tonight... looking forward to getting the equipment outside, after more than a month of NO-CLEAR-SKIES...