My secret indulgence – imaging from the back garden. SSh - I've said it out loud!
Sometimes it
is nice not to have to pack the car with all the gear to drive up onto Dartmoor
or down to the coast. Not that it’s an onerous drive – twenty minutes’ drive
north or south!
Occasionally, I get to image from my back garden. It isn't without its limitations:
- I can only see a northern sky - from NW around to NE
- The house cuts off the lower part of that sky range - so I can only target images higher in the sky
- Invariably I will have to do a meridian flip at some stage of a night shoot
- It is a Bortle 5 sky and so I need to use clip in filters
Last night I snatched a few hours targeting NGC 2403, an intermediate spiral galaxy in Camelopardolis, a mere 9.7 million light years from Earth. The galaxy contains numerous HII star forming regions and is 90,000 light years in diameter. Its spiral arms are quite short and I was pushing my equipment to the maxium to get any image at all frankly.
My equipment rig:
- Astromodded Canon 800D
- Optolong L-Pro clip in filter
- Zenithstar star 61ii with optional 61A field flattener
- EQM35Pro mount
- Autoguiding system comprising: ASIair Mini, ZWO 120mm mini guide cam and RVO 32mm guide scope
- Celestron Lithium Pro power tank
- 3 power banks for dew heater bands and dslr power
Shooting details:
- 240" x 40
- ISO 800
- 20 dark, bias and flat calibration frames
Post editing:
- stacked and edited in SIRIL using my normal workflow
- finishing in Affinity Photo
Here it is - an OK effort but needs more work on it - I dont shoot galaxies very often - so I need to develop a better galaxy workflow process.
Not quite sure which version is the better one - I tend to 'lose the wood for the trees' when post editing!
