This one was a journey (fun and full of challenges).  Winter in my part of Canada was marked by a large accumulation of snow and clouds.   We are now into early spring and have been having some nice weather (+4 to +8*C with clear skies) and so the snow is slowing melting.  This is my first shot at imaging since last fall (about 6 months).  

It was my first try with the AP GTO900 mount and its connection to my ASI air pro, as well as trying my SW 120 esprit refractor.  

M104 is available to astro folks in my part of the world in the spring, and it sits relatively low in the horizon.  It might reach elevation in the mid-20's (or so).  I have never imaged it and have been hoping to catch it this year.  I've seen some beautiful M104 images by many folks here on astrobin and thus have had plenty of impetus to try my hand. 

I convinced my astro friends to head out to our favourite dark site (Sandilands park).  Kevin W and I took a chance and made our way to the park.   We arrived and found the site still encumbered with large drifts of snow - but - also with a few nice dry patches.   We set up and began getting familiar with our equipment again!   

I had some fun with the Losmandy/AP reticle- but finally figured out the reticle, did a crude polar align.   One of the great things about the AP900 mount is the mechanicals.  Moving the base to align with Polaris is so easy and smooth, and the mount sits like a rock with everything battened down. 

I've got to say the ASIair pro works perfectly with the Astro-Physics mount, I had no difficulty getting it to talk to the CP3 control box.   It is much more friendly than with the old EQ6 (my previous mount).  The key is to use a high quality connection cable (RS232 to USB2 - FTDI chip included in the adaptor). 

Plate solving, PA went nicely, focusing was an adventure, but eventually locked onto a good star and got a decent focus with the Bahtinov. 

The 3" focuser on the Esprit is a nice piece of hardware... no problems with that.    

After I got all that going, the sky clouded over!  Kevin W and I sat around and talked about family, common friends, etc and after 11:15 pm suddenly the sky cleared completely.  I did a short sequence with M51 and then moved onto M104.

Testing and tweaking, we imaged until 5 am, packed up and drove home. 

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M104 - from SkySafari - "The Sombrero Galaxy was discovered in 1767 by Pierre Mechain. Charles Messier made a note of this object and five others (now recognized as M 104 through M 109) in his personal list of objects, but did not include them in his original published catalog. William Herschel independently discovered the object in 1784, and noted the presence of a "dark stratum" in the galaxy's disc. M 104 was "officially" included in the Messier Catalog in 1921 by Camille Flammarion, who found Messier's personal list, and identified the Sombrero with Herschel's H I.43 and with NGC 4594.""M104 is an unbarred spiral galaxy is of type Sa-Sb, with a big bright core and well-defined spiral arms. We view it from just 6 degrees south of its equatorial plane. Very deep photographs show that the galaxy has a faint, extended halo."


Thanks for looking!

Ian