31st January 2011 - A clear night again!
Sunday, January 30, 2011 at 6:40AM Following a week of cloud and rain, clear skies seem to have returned once more. The sky to the East and South were brilliant with stars and I was tempted to try some DSLR photography with the Sony Alpha camera mounted on the 12" Meade OTA driven by the CGEM mount. I first used a 50mm standard lens and then changed to a zoom lens set to 300mm focal length. I used my small laptop PC with the "Wilkinson" interface and DSLR shutter software to set exposure times. This was the first attempt at Orion with a 10 second exposure using the 18mm lens.
I then managed to get a 5 minute exposure of M42 with the 300mm lens
followed by a 10 minute exposure
and then tried for the "Flame Nebula" adjacent to Alnitak in the belt of Orion.
and then a 5 minute exposure of the Pleiades
