Photographic wanderings

• French

October 2010, 7th – Ajon (Bogève – Haute-Savoie – France)

Practising astronomy not at home can constraining (load the car, drive a few kilometers, install the equipment, uninstall the equipment, drive back home, … for emptying the car, this waits next day..). Howver, I like being in mountains, outside the city, in the peacefulness.

At the beginning of October, enjoying a few days off and good weather, I’ve been to my site astro preferred Ajon. Program: Heart nebula (IC1805) and soul nebula (IC1848) in the constellation Cassiopeia.

Below, you will find the field where are these two objects (the rectangle corresponds to that defined by the sensor).

During the shooting, which lasted 6 hours, I took the opportunity to:

• try and photograph the Hartley 103/P comet (This first attempt can be found HERE)
• attempt a tiny timelapse on Orion (not built yet)
• talk to a person who was coming back from work, wanted to have some fresh air and enjoy the stars

Beyond these 6 hours, I still had about additional 1h30 that allowed me to photograph another field in Orion (I didn’t process this image: it will be another article ).

During that night, I made several measurements with my SQM (Sky Quality Meter) because I felt the sky was better: the stratus covered the valleys. This gave the following measures:

• at 11pm : between 20.89 and 20.95
• at 1 am : between 21.04 and 21.07
• at 2 am : between 21.07 and 21.11 (the stratus began to cover the valley bottoms)
• at 4:30 am : between 21.19 and 21.22 (the stratus has completely covered the valley)

I had never known such measures this site !

Well, I speak, I speak, but we forget the photo …. So here. 

The high definition version is >>HERE<<

As usual, the small caption with the size of the Full Moon in order to have a scale.

Technical informations :

• Object(s) : IC1805/Sh2-190, IC1848/Sh2-199, NGC1027, IC1795/NGC896, Sh2-194, Sh2-198, Sh2-201
• Place :  ( Ajon – Bogève – Haute-Savoie – France)
• Date : October 2010, 7th
• Constellation : Cassiopeia (CAS)
• Numerical device : Canon EOS 350D Baader
• Lens : Canon 70-200 2.8 L (set at 200 mm f/3.5)
• Number of shots: 73
• Unit exposure time: 5 min at 200 ISO (i.e. total exposure : 6h05)
• Number of darks/flats/offsets : 15 / 5 / 15
• Mounting: Losmandy G11 + Gemini
• Guiding with LVI Smartguider on a William Optics Zenithstar 66 SD + Geoptik dual Vixen / EQ saddle
• Pre-processing / Processing : Deep Sky Stacker, Pixinsight LE, Photoshop CS5

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