It was forecast to be a clear night but there was too much moisture in the air and by 11:30 I couldn’t even pick out the brightest of objects and packed everything away.

The best seeing was earlier in the evening and I managed to get a few frames of NGC6946, I had my first view of the Iris Nebula and finished with M43 in Orion which is always overshadowed by it’s close neighbour M42 the Great Orion Nebula. My field of view doesn’t allow me to capture both M42 and M43 in the same frame so I was lucky to get these first images before the clouds rolled in. I had decided to try a mosiac of the area but this will have to wait for clearer skies (maybe tonight!).

On the 7th Feb I had a brief dry spell during which I re-collimated the scope using the Barlowed-Laser method and adjusted both the secondary and primary mirrors. Hopefully this will result in finer detail in both Nebulae in Galaxies.

The other thing that should make a difference is I cleared the huge donut off the CCD window! I’d noticed it from time to time and as it appears to be an image of the mirror I thought it was related to the collimation, but turning the camera 90° had no effect on the position so I knew it must be a speck of dust on the cover. I used a dry tissue to sweep it away.

Here are my latest attempts to capture the wonder of the heavens:

NGC6946 Spiral Galaxy in Cepheus

NGC7023 The Iris Nebula in Cepheus

M43 De Mairan’s Nebula in Orion