The Crescent Nebula - First Guided Image 23 July 2012

Well heavens above - two clear nights on the bounce. I'd forgotten how to do this stuff ;)

 

My first guided image! :) The Crescent Nebula in Cygnus, a mere 5K light years away.

 

Bought a modded Quickcam Pro4000, with the adaptor to fit it to the SW 9x50 finder scope, from Badgers/Anton on SGL. Then did the EQ5 handset mod using the kit from Shoestring Astronomy, downloaded PHD and voila. Total cost £90 - can't be bad :) Not perfect of course, but then it was never going to be with an EQ5 and rubbish motors. There was some evidence of wispy bits around this, but it looked more like discolouration, so I took it out - probably expecting too much :)

 

SW 200p/EQ5

Nikon D70 modded, iso 1600, Baader CC and Neodymium filter

40 x 5 mins for a total of 3 hours 20 minutes

Guiding: Quickcam Pro4000/9x50 finderscope, PHD

Stacked in DSS and processed in CS5

 

Done