Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Ursa Major (UMa)  ·  Contains:  Bode's Galaxy  ·  HD85458  ·  HD85828  ·  M 81  ·  NGC 3031
M81 - Seestar S50 in Bortle 1 skies, Phil Hoppes
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M81 - Seestar S50 in Bortle 1 skies

M81 - Seestar S50 in Bortle 1 skies, Phil Hoppes
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M81 - Seestar S50 in Bortle 1 skies

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Description

Had an opportunity to head to our place up north in Overgaard, Az.   With a new moon approaching and cold weather I figured it was an ideal time to pack up my Seestar and take it with me.  I've wanted to get an image of M81 for over a year now and the dark skies made for a great opportunity.

This shot is 180x10" subs with my Seestar.  The narrow band filter was not use but the internal IR/UV cut filter was.  I'm quite pleased with the level of detail I was able to get.  Looking at images from others of the same thing I was clearly able to get a lot more detail.  I'm sure the cold weather helped too.  Outside temps when this was shot was 18F (-8C) so it was very close to the temp I usually use with my more expensive rigs (-10C).

I did find that in the cold weather the S50 was having some difficulty in level reporting.  I set it up to image this at about 5pm when it was about 40F outside.  When I did this I managed to get two green circles with a reading of about 0.7-0.8 on my level readings.  After I finished for the night the S50 reported my level was way off and it was showing a value of 4.3 - 4.5.  I did not touch it and just went to bed.  When I got up at 4am to shoot M81 all was fine.  Go figure.

Looking forward to shooting this with my C14 but for now this will have to do.

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M81 - Seestar S50 in Bortle 1 skies, Phil Hoppes

In these public groups

ZWO Seestar S50