More Astrophotography Fun with all the Wrong Equipment

As I have alluded to in the past, my set up is far from optimum when it comes to trying to image Deep Space Objects. However, ever so often I like to have the odd play and see what I can get. Recently I had one of those moments and spent some time imaging a couple of Messier objects, Messier 34 and Messier 42.

First up was Messier 34 also know as the Spiral Cluster which is an open cluster in the constellation Perseus. I only managed to get 10 second exposures before the unstable mount caused me issues but in the end I managed to stack 21 of them together to capture the following image.

I have to be honest and say it isn't that inspiring, I still don't really get why it is known as the spiral cluster and the low exposure time and high F ratio means I didn't pick up many of the dimmer stars.

After this I moved onto everyone's favourite, Messier 42 also known as the Orion Nebula. This wonderful nebula within the Orion constellation is wonderful with visual astronomy so even with the limited exposure length I knew I would at least get something although a lack of stars meant my stacking programme wouldn't stack more than 9 images together.

I couldn't pick up the huge amount of the dust clouds present in the nebula but I did there is still a fair amount and the colours look lovely!

Jupiter GRS

So since I started my astronomy hobby I have never managed to get a very clear image of Jupiter's Giant Red Spot. So when I found out that it was going to be right in the middle at a decent time for me I set myself up and went imaging!

As you can see I clearly captured my target, but this just made me desperate for more. I decided it was time to try the barlow again!

For anyone who has read my blog before, you will know that I have never managed to get a decent image via barlow. However, I ended up doing some research and discovered that the relationship between my planetary camera pixel size and telescope focal ratio meant wasn't optimum for using my new 2.5x barlow. I therefore looked out my old 2x barlow and captured the image below.

Wow! It finally worked! I now know that for the time being I am going to bring my old 2x barlow out of retirement and use it on other targets to see if I can up the magnification.