nikonshooter Loc: Spartanburg, South Carolina

Sometimes I think the LORD has an interesting sense of humor....at age 71, I am counting the number of POSSIBLE clear sky nights based on my projected mortality....and I really don't like the math. Since I am planning on imaging well into my 100's I shouldn't sweat it.....but ya know it would be nice to have a cloudless night once in a while....just one per week would get a standing ovation in my home.

The last two nights were originally promised to be just that. Nada. "Seeing" ended up getting a poor rating, clouds hit 40 percent plus, and transparency (whatever that causes) has been rated as "poor" as well.

I imaged anyway! ...in spite of the crazy skies I just finished working on the pelican nebula that I did two nights ago and was surprised to see DATA.

Two nights ago, I imaged the Pelican nebula NGC 5070 and last night I imaged the Hercules Cluster M13 and the Crescent Nebula - sometime tonight...while imaging yet something else, I hope to process these.

All of this to say - friends of the night sky, screw the clouds!!! - image anyway - you may get a break.

I am sooooo glad I got the NEWT F/3.9 8 inch scope. I was able to get 230 subs (figured I would end up culling 150 of them but ended keeping all but 12 - go figure) My exposure was 25 second subs at 1000 ISO. I even guided knowing that I would have to set the guide cameras exposure to 2 seconds to help keep from losing my guide star in the clouds. My polar alignment (spot on from Polemaster) and tracking was better than I had hoped.

I processed the images in PixInsight - but did all of the heavy lifting in PS.

Pelican Nebula NGC5070

(Download)

CraigFair Loc: Santa Maria, CA.

Absolutely Beautiful Ed and you got it thru the clouds and it all stacked.
What Camera are you using Ed I forgot.
Craig

SonnyE Loc: Communist California, USA

Beautiful Ed!

When my wife tells me something is driving her crazy,
I tell her,
"Short trip." :twisted: :lol: :lol: :lol:

I took the chance to go ahead and set up in spite of the cloudy weather here.
The darn clouds are supposed to be gone tonight. :roll:

CraigFair Loc: Santa Maria, CA.

I have to make that short trip.
I can't see the Sun in my yard till 10:30 AM.
So it's a road trip.
Craig

nikonshooter Loc: Spartanburg, South Carolina

Nikon D800e did the hard work!

SonnyE Loc: Communist California, USA

I've got a school run to do. So my best guess will probably be doing a time lapse.
I was thinking of targeting Mercury and having the sun just passin through....

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

Looks incredible! You did well. The f3.9 can really make a difference. I see the image is 2566 x 3849, so I see you cropped it a bit from the native 4912 x 7,360 dimensions. Looks great.

I actually saw a couple stars last night. Not anywhere near clear enough to do anything with it, and today, there is actually some sunshine through broken clouds. But tomorrow, back to the grindstone. Sort of have missed my retirement hoped for date. I think I am going to tell them that starting in June, I go to 3 days a week until the projects I am waiting on are ready for my part.

CraigFair Loc: Santa Maria, CA.

That would be a different way to do it.
Craig

nikonshooter Loc: Spartanburg, South Carolina

Yep, I took a landscape and cropped a vertical/portrait orientatation to follow the shape of the birdie!

Albuqshutterbug Loc: Albuquerque NM

It's beautiful.
I once again tip my hat to you.
:mrgreen:

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

One minor correction on the name of this nebula. Its not NGC5070. That's a small, obscure galaxy. Instead it is IC5070.

And by the way, the two bright stars are magnitudes are magnitudes 11.31 (TYC3179-1333-1) and 11.65 (TYC3179-546-1) just to give an idea of just how faint the other stars are.

nikonshooter Loc: Spartanburg, South Carolina

Thanks for making the correction and updating the star brightness facts.....that is interesting.

John_F Loc: Minneapolis, MN

How close to the Atlantic is your location. That might have a bearing on cloudyness.

nikonshooter Loc: Spartanburg, South Carolina

2.5 hours from Charleston SC - 3.5 from Myrtle Beach........we are located in the foothills of the smoky mountains (Appalachian Mountains). The clear sky nights are always the nights when I have a double header - or an away game to photograph.