M57 - The Ring Nebula

22:22 25/7/2006 UTC

Autumn is coming slowly, and skies are getting darker every night. Altough it isn't really dark yet, some of the brightest deepsky targets are easily visible. I was out testing my new focusing application, which seemed to work nice. In fact, with this focal lenght it works better than needed since my lousy tracking spoils the image anyway. I was surprised how well the Ring came out! I tossed out all the frames (about 50%) with even minor tracking problems. Resulting image has acceptable sharpness even in full resolution. The original version is cropped and resized slightly.

Camera: Modified Canon EOS 350D | Telescope: Orion Optics Europa 200mm f6 Newtonian reflector | Mount: Orion Skyview Pro, Boxdoerfer PowerFlex MTS-3SLP drive controller | Filters: Baader UHC-S 2", Baader IR/UV block | Exposure: 22x30s (11m) ISO1600 f6, 10 darks, 12 flats | Software: IRIS, GIMP | Location: 60°31'N 26°52'E (Koivula/Kotka,FI)