Deep Sky Photography at a Moonlit Night
Last week we had a couple of beautiful winter days with reasonably clear nights. Unfortunately, it was almost full moon with the moon lit to 80-90%. However, with the enthusiasm that is typical for beginners I didn’t want to use the night exclusively to test equipment - I wanted to get a few pictures as well. Star clusters are an object type that I used to observe visually at such nights as they are usually reasonably bright and have good contrast. So that ist what I try first. NGC457, The Owl cluster 30x10sec, C9. 25 with reducer 1/6.3, ASI 294MC Pro on EQ6-R Pro M35 (right) with NGC 2158 (left) 30x10sec, C9. 25 with reducer 1/6.3, ASI 294MC Pro on EQ6-R Pro I think these came out quite nice. With so much moonlight it is hard to take longer exposures to get deeper. However, the brighter stars are starting to saturate anyhow, so these settings are probably ok. Most deep sky objects are looking way more impressive on a photograph than visually. However, while I like the pictures, this