28.11.11

All pink and a long look at Eunomia

With a nicely clear evening it was easy to ignore the added light pollution and attempt some images. The broadband illumination from the Christmas lights isn't that obvious to the naked eye above what is already there but the moment I start imaging it appears in all its bright pink glory!
I started by attempting M74 which for whatever reason I have somehow overlooked before. Being a fairly bright face-on galaxy I was hoping for a useable result but after taking 18 subs the final stack wasn't worth processing. Christmas lights sub enclosed shows how severe the problem (and this was a very transparent sky!). I moved on to 15 Eunomia's approach to The California Nebula which I hoped might be a more successful venture than M74 as it would be less affected by the CLs. I achieved nearly 5 hours of continual imaging of the asteroid taking 5 minute subs at intervals of 10 minutes before the guiding began to fail and the transparency deteriorated. I include two versions of the image as the trailed version doesn't give a true impression of its brightness owing to the averaging of the stacking (It was brighter than the adjacent star to its upper left). Details: 10" F4.3 Newtonian @ iso 1600.

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