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!