After a long stretch of poor conditions, I had to take advantage of the clear nights this past weekend.

Saturday night I just stayed out long enough to take a few quick snaps of the moon through my 28-300mm (@300mm) camera lens. I was pretty happy that the live preview on the canon 40D really helped to get a sharp focus with my ‘not so great’ zoom lens.

Sunday night I was on a mission to capture some winter DSOs. It was really mild and I figured this may be my only chance to do this before the cold winter nights decide to settle in. I set up in the evening, took a nap since the moon wasn’t going to set till after midnight. There were also some high clouds passing by overhead which I figured would be gone later in the night. I woke up around 12:30am to beautiful clear skies and a warm southwest breeze. I was so happy to be feeling refreshed and very awake.

All photos were taken with the Canon 40D and the SW 80mm Equinox, except M1 which was taken with the 6in SCT.

M45
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M42 I am so glad to have finally captured this great nebula
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M1 Crab Nebula… So tiny. I did a few sharpening routines to bring out some detail. This object needs to be imaged with a scope bigger than the 6in. Next time I’ll try it without the focal reducer.
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KerryLH