M45-Pleiades 14' total integration in LRGB from Camino del Valladal, Navas del Marqués, Ávila. Spain (jasondclayton)

M45-Pleiades 14' total integration in LRGB from Camino del Valladal, Navas del Marqués, Ávila. Spain

Hi!

It was a pitty that this series of photos made to M45 were taken at the end of the night (around 06:00 AM). That night I had trouble with a lot of different things (focuser, long exposures -max 30s!!-, no guiding, batery issues with a bad StepUp circuitry, no -good- calibration frames taken, framing the object with a manual rotator....) The issue that affected the most was the imposibility to guide (mount alone) more than 30s without ending with oblongue stars. I even went to Pole star alingment procedure with a total error of 10" arcsec (which I believe it is ok enough and it should also permit up to 120s without second guiding. At least, I've done that before)

The calibration frames were not good (Bias, Darks and Flats) due to the manual rotator. I've used it to perfectly frame the 7 sisters within the FOV but when taking the calibration I've forgot I rotated 45º eastern and allthough I took calibration respeting temp, gain, offset... the FOV was rotated!

BTW, guiding was not possible because balance on both axis (AR/DEC) is not physically possible (guiding tube is on left side weighting > 2Kg) and this is something that I will takle as soon as I received some components.

Anyways, I published the picture to share my initial thoughs and as reminder for myself on how critical are some initial procedures and astrophotography considerations.

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