The sky was no good for the whole day, but it's clearing up so why not give it a run?
Let's try again and hopefully got more photons this time:
Stacking failed after around 1.5 hours.
So I switched to the coat hanger for a small mosaic, this one is interesting visually and the S30 could capture it via stitching:
I ordered a pair of 58mm solar filter for my Canon 18x50mm IS.
I choose glass filters instead of Baader film, since I want them to last longer.
My thousand oaks solar filter still survive after nearly 30 years of services!
I'm glad to have a chance to test them out this morning. Despite there are quite many clouds floating around, I got some nice views.
Sunspots were clear, with quite a lot of detail within! The nice optics of the Canon 18x50 IS definitely shows a lot. With two eyes, it certainly helps! The image stablisation helps a lot at 18x, it's just very convenient and powerful.
I've also ordered a herschel wedge for my refractor. I shall test it later, and if it is good, I might import some more to the local market.
It has been raining crazily.
The floor is still wet but the sky clear up suddenly.
Setting up the S30 is no brainer, the best part of this little piece of equipment.
It's 20:56 now, and exposure should begin before 21:00, I still have 1.5 hour of exposure hopefully.
After around 30 minutes of exposure, it rains. I didn't realise until stacking failure was reported. I pulled the S30 inside and use a fan to dry it, hopefully it's not soaked yet.
I should try this target again later.
Will be spending the whole session on it, hopefully get more than an hour of exposure.
Finally more than two hours, 2:14 to be exact:
Quite many nebulosity. I'm going to do more of these, I mean to work on a single target per session.
I shall also bring out my 6D with my 200mm lens to take even wider field of view. Time to explore the potential of non-cooled imaging.
I am doing mosaic with 2x to maximise the field of view, started at around 9:00pm.
Transparency maybe 5-6/10.
See how long exposure I could get.
Total for 46 minutes, failed to finish the whole mosaic, the nebula is not very visible:
No more new target could be acquired tonight.
C27 will be my first target, the Crescent Nebula:
40 minutes of exposure.
I also setup my 85mm refractor looking at the moon and also scan around with my daughter Almy.
Despite AI found it couldn't be completed here in Scotland, I will continue anyway.
M5 is higher in the sky since I started earlier (before 9:00pm) today.
Blocked.
M8 also blocked.
M9 also blocked.
M72 partially blocked.
M73 seems alright, only slightly blocked, still failed.
--
Going back to M72 worked (9:26pm), for 11 minutes:
Going back to M73 (optical asterism of four main stars) for 5 minutes:
--
No more suitable target, so switching to C11 the Bubble Nebula with M52 at a corner, for 15 minutes:-
Re-visited M14 for a better image, for xx minutes:-
