November 2015, A Great Month for Imaging

Pleasant fall weather and clear nights are the dream for every autumn, and occasionally that's exactly what happens. This year's September, October and November allowed me to image on 15 nights (or more, I may have missed a counting a few). And that's not counting a few clear nights during full moons when lunar observers were probably having fun. I did some work on the Arp and planetary nebula observing programs, and made time for a pretty objects as well. Here are a few of this autumn's images:

Messier 33, Canon T2i and AT65EDQ

Messier 45, SBIG ST-8300M LRGB and AT65EDQ

NGC 246, SBIG ST-8300M RGB and C 9.25

I really like the way the Canon and AT65 work together to make for light-weight, large field imaging. The previous (and only) deep image I'd done with the T2i made me wonder about how noisy the camera was, but the M33 image background came out nice and smooth, probably aided by the temperature being in the 40s F.

Winter's here now it appears. Temperatures are in the teens at night and there's an inch or two of snow on the ground with several more inches in the forecast.

My winter goals this year are modest compared to last year when I was in a mad rush to complete the bright nebula program. A nice narrowband image of Barnard's loop would be nice, and perhaps if the conditions cooperate one or two of the big winter nebulae with the Canon/AT65.

Two little wiring projects are planned, too. I want to replace the cord on my CGEM's handset with a longer flat cable and make a 12V to 7.4V power supply for the Canon.

Plans are afoot for club members to gather for an imaging SIG meeting and mirror making seminar in January or February. I hope to attend both.