From: Mark Gaffney <markgaffney@me.com>

Date: October 11, 2009 9:55:41 PM MDT

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: deep space shots.. Flea 2 camera

I attempted some DSO`s last night with my NexStar 4SE (brought out of retirement) as it has Alt/Azm alignment & dosen`t need polar alignment (still causing me some consternation on the C9.25 here in the southern hemisphere) & my Flea 2 colour with extended exposure mode. Whilst nothing to write home about yet you can see from these 2 images my level of success so far..The first is of Sirius, 3-4... 5 second exposures stacked & aligned from the "movie" created...

The next is 2 small stars in the M 42 region just creeping into the shot (top left) before disappearing prior to focusing..(I never found them again!) This is an unstacked snapshot of one of the frames...

My 2 star alignment on the 4SE was suspect & I`ll have to read up again how to improve it (I`ve forgotten lots of easy things on this scope..) Things were skipping out of view before I could do much to enhance them..

I am of course doing this unguided & it`s basically an experiment learning the processes involved..The green tinge will have to be worked on next time!

Mark.