At NEAF I bought the small refractor I’m planning to use for astrophotography but all the associated parts I need haven’t arrived yet so when a couple fo clear nights showed up I decided to try imaging the area around the galaxies M81 and M82. Granted, they are going to be very small in the frame at 200mm focal length but I figured it would be good practice.

And I definitely need the practice. I’ve still got some issues to work out but I managed to get about 3 hours of data (99 images, 2 minute exposures). This was spread over two nights and, unfortunately, mostly in the light of the just past full moon. That definitely made things more challenging when it cam time to process the data.

It was a worthwhile exercise. I’m learning more about the equipment and more about image processing. Overall, still baby steps, but it was fun  to see this come together in something resembling what I was hoping to achieve.

You can find the image on astrobin.