Imaging telescopes or lenses: Meade 2080 SCT 8" LX5
Imaging cameras: Meade DSI 3 Pro
Mounts: Meade Fork mount w/wedge Meade
Guiding telescopes or lenses: Meade 8x50mm Finder/Guider
Guiding cameras: Orion Starshoot autoguider
Software: SiliconFields / Ivo Jager Startools v1.7 · Stark Labs Nebulosity v3 · PHD2 Guiding V 2.6 · Meade Envisage V4.10
Filters: Meade RGB-IR Cut 1.25" · Meade LRGB 1.25"
Accessory: Bahtinov Mask · Homemade ST4 autoguider · Finder guider 8x50 Finder Scope
Dates:Feb. 27, 2021
Frames:
Meade Blue Filter for CCD: 14x60" bin 1x1
Meade Green Filter for CCD: 22x60" bin 1x1
Meade RGB-IR Cut 1.25": 54x60" bin 1x1
Meade Red Filter for CCD: 24x60" bin 1x1
Integration: 1.9 hours
Darks: ~20
Flats: ~54
Avg. Moon age: 14.93 days
Avg. Moon phase: 99.97%
Bortle Dark-Sky Scale: 4.00
Mean FWHM: 3.50
Temperature: 4.00
Astrometry.net job: 4262917
Resolution: 1282x997
Locations: Home 'observatory' (Bortle 5), Derbyshire, United Kingdom
Data source: Backyard
There is definitely a limit to what one can image, and find, under a bright moonlit sky. I’m all for seasonal veg, but couldn’t resist a bright target in the wee hours, more usually associated with a summer feast.
Two consecutive clear nights (or ‘moonlit days’) were a treat, and I spent time getting a good polar alignment (<0.1’ according to PHD) and fine tuning my portable setup. Despite this there is some elongation of stars, mainly, I think due to the poor seeing with FWHM >3” most of the time; reducing guiding to 3s helped to smooth this out.
This LRGB image, just shy of 2 hours, resolves this globular cluster quite well, using 60s exposures, which balanced the bright sky background, and shows hints of the outer stars. On advice of others I have left some sky glow in the background, which remains true to the conditions. Processed using defaults in Startools, I am happy with this, but have included a higher contrast image in revision B (mouse over).
Description: A version with more contrast, but some clipping of data, resulting in loss of detail outside the core.
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