All taken at COAA during late October 2009.

Click on each image for a larger version etc.

All the images were captured in raw format to a CF card in the camera (usb1.1 is too slow to download each one after exposure) they were then processed with Mike Unsold's excellent Images Plus (V3.80), I've still not got it all working as automatically as I'd like but - hey I'm better than I was. Camera control is also by means of Images Plus - camera control edition. I did not use darks but did use flats for the 200mm lens shots. Mostly I used median combine, followed by a session of DDP and any smooth/sharpen needed.

Below each image is a brief record of instrument, exposure and the like.

This is made up of 15, 4 minute exposures taken on 2009/10/18 with a Canon 70-200mm f/4 L lens at f/4.5 and a self modified Canon 300D. The exposures were guided by a 12" f/5 Newtonian telescope using a TouCam, and either Astrovideo or WxAstroCapture running under windows XP and talking to a WinCTC box

Messier's 31st. object, the great galaxy in Andromeda, this was taken with the same set up as above on 2009/12/17, and apart from only being 12 exposures the details are the same

Messier's 33rd. - this is hard, it's faint and big! This is 20 exposures of 4 minutes on 2009/10/22. Must try a better focal length - this is too small for 200mm but to big for 2.24m or 1.5m that are easily guidable at COAA. Ho Humm!

NGC7822 in Perseus, one of a number of faint emission nebulae in the area (more later). 2009/10/23 and made up of 25, 4 minute exposures, I just let the kit get on with it - occasional check that the camera was still looking out of the slot in the dome.

This is a couple of faint patches of glowing hydrogen gas between Perseus & Cassiopeia, that surround two open clusters Melotte 15 & IC1848. Or something like that - it's very complex. Anyway they are faint and big, fit nicely in a 200mm frame (on a Canon 300D) or would if I'd rotated the camera 90 degrees. They are just about 5 degrees north and a little east of the 'double cluster' in Perseus. 2009/10/24 and

On the same night I also grabbed a few frames (6) of NGC1499, other wise know as the California nebula, as it looks a bit like a map of California - ish. The low frame count means it is noisier than I would like, but there is always next time - I suppose.

And finally (from October) 23 frames through the 20" of NGC253

This is an image from 2009/04/01 and is of M51, in Canes Venatici it is an stack of 22, 2 minute exposures with 50 dark and 50 bias frames used for calibration (doing it properly here - except no flats). Processed in IP3.8, and tweaked finally in GIMP.