Tried to get 2 of Mike's challenges, last night. Operative word being, tried.
It was thick frost before I even got going. The CLS filter on the Canon went foggy although the dew strips kept the scopes clear, which I was pleased about.
All the equipment was covered in thick frost, including me.
I had the Canon on the ZS66 with FR. Probably because of the cls filter, I could not see much, with 300 secs exposures.
The nebula in Auriga NGC1931, I never saw a sign of it. I had the very centre of the barred spiral, IC342, in Cameorpardis on the chip but it was so very small with no other detail visible. I slewed to M33 & NGC 891 to make sure I was on target, which I was.
I changed the camera to the ED80, but still could not really see anything, only a bit more of the centre of IC342, which was still very small. No hint of anything else.
I think this is a large spiral but is hard to see because of obscuring matter.
I should have stayed with the Moon as it was very nice early on in the evening.
Fay
Fay - They are both very small NGC1931 is only 6 arcmins & IC342 is a bit larger at approx 21 arcmins. With the EOS on the ZS66 with .8X FR you get aprox 250X170 arcmins FOV.... I'm not suprised you didn't see much...
John
Fay,
Well done for trying!
I came home from work, saw the murky sky and decided to stay indoors.
Mark
I stayed inside with a nice hot cup of coffee and soldered up some circuits on a stripboard :)
Oh, John, that explains it. Should have used the Atik. Never mind, I had a go.
...and a longer focal length than the ZS66 which is VERY wide.
Yep Atik & ED80 would have been a better option for both... that gives you approx 50X38 arcmins - John