Went to my third Queensland Astrofest last week for 3 nights. You might recall last year's posts of the star trails and M20 Trifid Nebula.
Unlike last year, I didn't have equipment issues per se. I was, however, sick as a dog trying to shake a bit of a cold/flu. Just wouldn't go away, and sitting out in a field in winter is not really the cure that I'd hoped for.
The first night was clear and great conditions until fog rolled in around 2am-3am. Being too keen to get going, I didn't quite spend enough time drift aligning, and my longer exposures and guiding wasn't quite where it should have been. That's my fault.
Second night I spent more time drift aligning and the guiding was spot on, probably the best I've achieved. This was also the night I got some of my best images. Unfortunately cloud rolled in to slow things down and I didn't get to complete some of the later images.
Third night I was really unwell. Borrowed some drugs, washed them down with some beers, and felt much better. Then the clouds rolled in, followed by a lightning storm. It was also the Friday night, and lots of kids had turned up. Running in and around everyone's equipment, I had 2 kids tripping over my USB cables nearly pulling them out. Another guy tripped over my power connection and it did disconnect my power, but fortunately I was using a UPS so when it started beeping I realised what happened and was able to plug in the power again while on the backup supply. It was a real circus and not much achieved.
On top of the above, on the second and third nights my telescope was catching some stray light reflections. This gives a rainbow flare in the edges of my shots. Couldn't figure out what was causing it on the second night, but realised it was torch flare from a nearby astro-imager who was tinkering with his gear all night. He continued to do it on Friday night and the same effect was in my images.
So in the end, only got a couple of images completed, some ruined by light reflections, and some half-finished ones that will need more data to add. Here's the pick of the bunch.
NGC6726 region in the constellation Corona Australis. I love the blue reflection nebulae, dusty background, and globular cluster. I had to crop it down due to the rainbow flare bottom left. Still, I think it turned out pretty well.
This is M33 the Triangulum Galaxy in the constellation Triangulum. Only managed to get luminance data on it. Will have to add some colour when I get a chance, which may not be until next year due to it being so low in the sky here in south-east Queensland.
And this is Cr399 the Coathanger or Brocchi's Cluster in the constellation Vulpecula. The asterism of bright stars pretty clearly shows a coathanger shape. It's a very cool visual object through binoculars, too. Lots of golden stars in the background too, because it's right in the plane of the Milky Way.
