Sunday, November 07, 2010

NGC 7293, The Helix Nebula


Did you ever have one of those times when nothing worked right? When things unrelated would fail in sequence? That was my night last night. Just finding this stupid thing took nearly an hour, punctuated by the camera battery adapter flaking out, and not being able to figure out how to get the guide scope to focus, to plugging the autoguider into the wrong port on the mount and spending 20 minutes trying to figure out why it's not working. So instead of 4 hours on this, Here's just 12 5-minute exposures stacked with no darks and no flats. How I got as much as I did is beyond me, because I did everything wrong I could have.

EagleEye Observatory, Canyon of the Eagles Park, Burnet TX
Exposure: 12 x 5 minutes
Camera: Modified Canon Digital Rebel XT (350D)
Scope: Celestron C6, Meade f/6.3 focal reducer
Mount: Meade LXD650
Guider: Short Tube 80, Meade DSI
Filter: None
Software: PHD Guiding, Nebulosity, Photoshop

1 comment:

Phil said...

Completely understand your predicament. It happens from time-to-time. Still, a great effort on this object!