M71 & M27

Last night was the second opportunity to capture some light with the new astro camera. Time for some tests after plenty of reading on the different and optimum settings for gain, exposure and time and balancing that with my scope size and focal length. So we have 2 images M71 & M27. M71 a wonderful globular cluster in Sagitta. Exposure time was 15 x 3 minute exposures with gain at 0 to take advantage of the full well depth 50ke and 16 bit. Readout noise is below detection when cooled to -15. I am happy to play for a few months in Mono before unleashing the filters. M27 was set to 5 minute exposures and here just six of them for 30 minutes of total exposure. A crop too of approx 400%

Lonely among us.

Floating amongst a myriad of stars lost in time for 10 billion years,(a junior in globular standards) M71 will have spent eons watching the birth and growth of our galaxy looking down from it's vantage point outside the disk of the milky way 1200 light years away. To it's left lies the wonderfully coloured g Sagittae a red giant in it's twilight years some 640 times more luminous that our sun and 55 times more massive too.

Stacked in Maxim DL and processed in Photoshop this 1 hour exposure at Iso 800 has had no darks, flats, or Bias frames. A minimal DDP stretch. I find with globulars less is more with the processing. A pleasing result and very happy being being able to resolve stars to the core of M71