Horsehead and The Flame Nebula

20:52 27/12/2008 UTC

It's been a long time since I was imaging last time. We have had a long cloudy period and whenever there was clear sky, I was occupied somewhere else. During the christmas holidays I had an opportunity catch some photons and test my MT-1 motors for the mount. Everyting went quite fine, sky wasn't totally clear however. But still I was able to capture something about this nice target. I also begun to build a library of carefully prepared darks, this time I used one made in -5°C from 40 frames. Should be somewhat free of randon noise...

Camera: Modified Canon EOS 350D | Telescope: Skywatcher ED80 Pro 80mm f7.5 refractor, William Optics 0.8x focal reducer | Mount: Vixen GP-D2, Boxdoerfer PowerFlex MTS-3SLP drive controller | Filters: Astronomik EOS L UV/IR Insert Filter, Astronomik H-alpha 13nm 2" | Guiding: , The Imaging Source DMK 21AU04.AS CCD camera, Orion ShortTube 80mm f5 refractor, Stark-Labs PHD Guiding | Exposure: Ha: 7x600s (1h10m) ISO800 f6, 40 darks, 11 flats, 0 bias | Software: Stark-Labs Nebulosity 2 | Location: 60°31'N 26°52'E (Koivula/Kotka,FI) | Background sky brightness (SQM): 19.36mag/arcsec²