Mistakes were made....

(A single shot of Orion with a helicopter flying through the shot)

Sooo, what an idiot I've been trying to get into this astrophotography thing, I suppose these are rooky mistakes, but you'll laugh when you realise what I'd done.

(Orion Nebula)

While I was looking at my iOptron Skytracker Pro as when I used it last, it was if it wouldn't go back far enough to polar align with Polaris, anything over 40 degrees and it wouldn't go back any further, then I realised, the tracker was on it's mount the wrong way, so I swapped it around and can now align with Polaris perfectly, I was over the moon when I sorted it out.

I also had to adjust the finder scope, as the display dial was tilted around 90 degrees, I did contact iOptron and they told me the best way to adjust it, so followed their instructions and it's perfect now.

So after these adjustments I'd been itching to get out with the tracker again, but alas the weather has been rubbish yet again, until last night at least, where we had a lovely mild clear night, so my first target was Orion (again).

Cropping into my shot of Orion, I am more than pleased, due to me sorting out the tracker, I was able to shoot exposures at 1 minute 30 seconds without the stars trailing, I was also at 105mm, I was well happy with this, and also even more happy that I only shot around 12 shots.

My next target was the Pleiades, one of the reasons I wanted to photograph this was that I remember looking at this constellation out of my bedroom window when I was a kid and should be in bed sleeping, but I used to spend hours, studying the night sky, and this is one of the constellations I used to love to see.

I only shot 15 shots and stacked them using the free program DeepSkyStacker, I just love how I have managed to get some of the dust clouds showing that surround the seven sisters, I didn't shoot any light frames or dark frames either, but pictures last night, but I am so happy with these photos, for now, and I know improvements will come on future shoots.

I really need to get a photoshop plugin called Gradient Xterminator, this will get rid of the brighter parts of the image, hence the unnatural light patch on the above image.

However, I GOT THE DUST CLOUDS!!! YAY!!!!

I can't wait for the next shoot, but the weather has changed again, we have rain and wind, and it's a bit cool today, not sure when the next clear night will be, but I'll be out in it, hopefully somewhere with much darker skies for that lovely detail.

Thanks for reading,

All the best :-)