The Atik 16ic arrived this morning, that was quick! I’ve powered it up to make sure it works but I’m under strict instructions not to use it until Christmas.

It was cloudy earlier but has cleared a little so I’ve set the scope up in the hope that I can get a few hours imaging in tonight. I thought the Crescent nebula shots from the other night were better than expected considering 15 second subs, so I’ll be increasing the exposure and hoping for a recognisable mosaic.  I still struggle with anything longer than about 30 seconds but I’ll be autoguiding within 2 weeks, that should sort out my long exposures.

On the subject of autoguiding I’ll be using my SC1 SPC900NC and as posted previously will see if I can use the 60mm refracter I have, failing that I’ve seen some promising results with 50mm finders so I may go down this route.

I’ve just had a  quick look at the remote screen and it seems to be clouding over again .. back soon.

00:04 – It did clear but I stayed with the Crescent to see if I could add pieces to the mosaic I’ve been building, but there’s too much high cloud and the nebula was barely visible. About 20 minutes ago I tried to slew the scope around to the North, suffered a meridian flip and lost my alignment. A trip out to the scope gave me another idea. There in the South was Orion the Hunter clear of my neighbours roof and begging to be imaged. I quickly realigned the scope and started it taking 15 second subs. Here’s the result of 46 of those frames stacked in Registax: