





This time I used two old data sets of IC 1805 and IC 1848, one from when the camera has not been modified yet and one from last summer, both under fair skies.
(1) 41×2 min, ISO 1600, Canon EF 200mm f2.8L II USM at F/3.5, Canon 1100D unmod, EQ3 (see article)
(2) 8×3 min, ISO 1600, Canon EF 200mm f2.8L II USM at F/4, Canon 1100D mod, HEQ5 (see article)
I reduced the stars with my own program.
Galaxies Maffei 1 and Maffei 2 are also in the frame, the yellow patches on the bottom. Both galaxies are in the zone of avoidance, ie in the plane of the Milky Way where the dust adds up to be almost opaque. Wiki says 99.5% of the light of Maffei 2 is obscured. In a crop below I emphasize these objects with infrared data from WISE. The dust is mostly transparent at infrared wavelengths.
In the camp at the Rotunda Pass, my plan was to acquire hours of light on the Heart and Soul, but the sky thought otherwise. I squeezed out about 8 fair exposures, 4 being with good and 4 with decent transparency (ie less contrast). So the instruments: Canon 1100D mod, 8×3 minutes, ISO 1600 at 200mm F/4 on the HEQ5 mount. I reprocessed the picture with the new star removal tool I developed a few days ago.
Amateur astronomers from Máramarossziget/Sighetu Marmației organized the Dark Skies 2016 Astronomy Camp at the Rotunda Pass. The area is one of the last remaining dark spots in the EU, so dark that the clouds appear to be dark brown/black.
The camp being meant mainly for visual observers, had no electricity, just a generator run in the evening, during the dinner to recharge the gadgets. It is the owner’s fault we had no running water at all, an issue I would have imagined for the savanna/desert in Namibia, not the Romanian countryside with a long estabilished cabin with as much water that my jacket got wet in a clear night. So much for the level of civilisation and decency. (tovább…)
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