Moon, M31, Trifid Nebula shots by Tim Harpur

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Some images from Binbrook last night. It was a clear night – warm – slight breeze – and almost no mosqitoes. Unfortunately, most of the DSOs I had intended on imaging were within a few degrees of the very bright moon. I imaged the Trifid Nebula – and after seeing the severe moon glow washing out the scene I abandoned the idea of trying to image the other nearby DSOs. I was still able to filter out (via software) enough of the wash to get a usable image, which has now been posted to my gallery. I also tried imaging Andromeda for the first time – my initial attempt was with my main scope (8″ SCT) – which wasn’t turning out so well – so I moved my camera to my guide scope and used my main for guiding. With a focal length of only 400mm, my guide scope had the perfect FOV – capturing M31 (Andromeda) and its small companion gallaxies M32 and M110.