| Exposure Details |
| Lens |
Sky-Watcher Esprit 100 |
| Focal Length |
550mm |
| Focal Ratio |
F5.5 |
| |
| Mount |
Takahashi NJP |
| Guiding |
Orion Magnificient Mini Autoguider |
| |
| Camera |
Canon T3i Full Spectrum Modified (Gary Honis) |
| Exposure |
85 lights at 360 seconds each - 8.5 hours total exposure |
| Calibration |
30 darks, no flats, 100 bias |
| |
| Date |
September 25th-27th of the year 2014 |
| Temperature |
24 degrees C |
| SQM Reading |
Bortle 1 |
| Seeing |
Great |
| Location |
Okie-Tex Star Party- Kenton, OK |
| |
| Software Used |
Backyard EOS, PixInsight, PHD Guiding |
| Notes |
This was a fun little capture and my first attempt at long exposure with very bright stars. It also looks really good printed out in 16x20. This star cluster is moving through a cloud of interstellar dust and the brightness of the stars illuminate the dust for us to see in a long exposure picture. Therefore, this particular star cluster is very unnique and likely the most photographed star cluster in our galaxy. Following this trip, I attended the El Dorado Star Party in Texas and used this target as a comparison target for two different telescopes. Very similar to the M31 comparison I did, I used an FSQ106 sitting next to an Esprit 100 and produced a comparison result in a sense of DSLR photography. Both scopes perform very well and make a nice image. This comparison was also part of a Sky Watcher Esprit ad that ran in 2015 for Astronomy Magazine as well as Sky and Telescope Magazine. Possibly others that publish ads for Sky Watcher. The ad will be listed below. |
