NGC 6633 is an open cluster, in the constellation Ophiuchus. It is almost as large as the full moon, and contains 30 stars and its age is approximately 660 million years (source: wikipedia). I imaged this object as we had a couple of somewhat clear nights last week and the moon was not coming out until later in the evening. This cluster was in the perfect location so I went ahead with it. I wanted to practice with APT rather than BYE but was I did not trust the focusing so I went back to BYE.
This may be surprising to most but I used dithering for the first time on an object. I like the quality of what I obtained, however, it took up to 50 seconds between exposures. Dithering while shooting with long exposures, three minutes or more, is definitely worthwhile. However, for shorter exposures, 90 seconds or less, it adds a significant amount of time which may be better spent collecting more sub frames.
http://kurt-zeppetello.blogspot.com/
Comments