“Thor’s Helmet,” aka NGC 2359. First time I ever shot this with any camera. For years I’ve passed this guy up for bigger or better objects nearby, but not on this night. It was a main goal for this night’s imaging session. It did not get high enough to image until 2:00 am here and I took a nap as soon as I started it going. Luckily, I got enough data before sunrise to make a half-decent final image

UPDATE  Nov 13, 2020:
More time added with 30×120 sec sub-images at Gain 20, offset 200 to the above.  Total time 3 hrs, 22 min.

I was killing time while waiting for Thor’s Helmet to get into position, so I shot the Horsehead and Flame Nebula region.  I used Fitsworks to crop out the dithering artifacts and set a black point and do the initial color balance. Photoshop and some hue and saturation adjustments to finish it off. Then, one pass with color blotch action and one horizontal banding removal action later and this is how it came out.  A few other tweaks were done, too. Not too bad for the minimal effort and a full moon night.

Taken from a metro area, Bortle 7-8 zone, the day after Hurricane Delta. Above average transparency and average seeing.

For a night with a full moon, this came out pretty good.  Good transparency helped.  Minimal processing with only color balance and saturation/hue adjustment tricks were used.

I shot this while waiting for the Moon and Mars to get higher in the sky on Friday, Oct 2nd, 2020.   After shooting some moonrise shots, I turned the scope to this and got 40 minutes of sub-images before it went behind a tree.

It was also the first time I imaged using a generator for power and a battery backup unit to keep the scope running if I ran out of gas and had to refill the tank.  I got a great deal on the generator that I could not pass up.   It will work better in the field with my current imaging setup than the battery system I had before.

Here’s a very short run I did on the Trifid Nebula.  An extra short quickie with only minimal processing.  I was interrupted by a couple of young gents who saw me imaging in the front parking lot and wanted to see what I was up to.   They also wanted to see Jupiter, so I obliged.  By the time I got back to the Trifid, it was already about to go behind a tree.  Oh, well…

I am hoping to get this object with about an hour of exposure at least, if not more.  To that end, I added what I had taken before with my SN8 and Canon XT camera to see how it might look.  The additional data was 54 minutes of 3 min ISO 800 subs.  It is about a half-n-half blend:

I had been wanting to get some data on this one for quite some time.  Finally, a clear night with no big commitments the next work day came along on Thursday evening, Aug 20, 2020 and I got my chance.

I setup my rig in the front parking lot of the place where I stay at instead of the usual back alleyway.  It was the only place to get a clear view without trees and street light glare interfering.

I used the Optolong L-eNhance filter, which works really well for this object.   I did an hour’s worth of exposure, which was enough to tamp down the noise enough for a decent final image.  It could use more and I might add to it later if I get the chance.