Be still my beating heart.... Just moved into a new home and with even more snow/rain/clouds over the last 2-3 weeks I haven't had time to image since I did the Horsehead and Rosette shots. Snowed all day today and when I got home it miraculously cleared up. I hurried and setup all my equipment, ending up having the best guiding I've ever had (sub 1" RMS) and about the only thing I could image from my back patio was the Heart Nebula. Did 16 x 10 minute exposures at ISO 1600 with my Baader 7nm H-alpha filter on my Nikon D7000 (full spectrum mod), shot with my Astrotech AT65EDQ on a Sirius EQ-G mount from a bortle 8/9 zone.
A very up and down start to this crazy huge Milky Way core region project, decided to put together 4 panels this last weekend while up in the Uinta Mountains. I also tried using the NikonHacker black point firmware for my D800E for the first time, I had previously used it for my D600 and D7000, but it's always tricky to get it to load right (and stay loaded throughout the entire imaging session). Focus also drifted a bit as it cooled down into the low 40's which caused the left 2 panels to not stitch/mosaic perfectly, plus I fudged the alignment on the upper left panel, but that will be no problem once I get the rest of the panels done. Lastly, I had to take 3 different sets of flat frames because of issues with the master flat calibration of the lights, frustrating stuff. So 4 panels down, around 20-22 panels to go, this is going to be a tough project. Each panel is a stack of 7 to 10 exposures taken with my Nikon D800E and Samyang 135mm f2 lens on a Sky Watcher Star Adventurer tracking mount. Each exposure was 3 minutes at ISO 800 and f2.8.
Decided to give this data another go-through, wasn't entirely happy with the original edit I did, think this one turned out much better.
