Trifid Nebula M20

Well I splurged and bought Nebulosity V2.03. A astronomy photo stacking / editing program. I had taken photos of the Trifid Nebula last Sunday when we were in Borrego Springs and no matter how hard I tried I just couldn't get the photos to come out. After about 1/2 hour of work with Nebulosity here's the result.

M17 Omega Nebula

We drove out to a great "Dark Sky" location in Borrego Springs, CA on Sunday and spent the night under a clear sky. Stayed at a great "Amateur Astronomer Friendly" Hotel / RV park called the "Palm Canyon Resort" http://www.palmcanyonresort.com/. I was only able to capture a few photos as we were busy showing others at the resort our telescope and the sites of the evening. However I was finally able to spot a few new objects that had evaded me from our home viewing site. (Omega Nebula M17, Trifid Nebula M20, Crab Nebula M1). Telescope worked well however I still keep having problems with my use of Stellarium as a main program. I'm sure it is "user error" so just have to keep working at it.

Special thanks to Shirley the resort manager for making our stay a very enjoyable one.

Here's one of the photos I have finished processing:
M17 Omega Nebula

M27 Dumb Bell Nebula after mount repairs.

Had a really good night! I did a complete disassembly and rebuild of my EQ5 pro mount. Cleaned and re-greased all surfaces and adjusted motors and worm gears. It made a significant difference in the operation of the mount. Set up tonight and was able to get 30 second images. Pointed to M27 (dumbbell nebula) and took 20 exposures. Here's the result with very minor tweaks in "GIMP". (11-4-09) I updated this photo by removing some of the images that had "star trails" and re-stacking with final processing in Nebulosity. Here's the new version.

LCROSS attempt

Attempted to photograph LCROSS the other night. But had a few things working against me. I got to late of a start and it seems that non of the ground based amature telescopes had much luck catching it. Soooo.. Here's a photo of the moon from that night. (Note the is the north pole "Mare Friguris" region the moon not the location for the LCROSS impact.) Starting to get the hang of lunar imaging with the DSI IIc camera.