I had to watch Waking the Dead on TV before going out to take pictures of the night sky, but had to pay for it in lost time as the clear sky degenerated, very gradually into full cloud.
It wasn't really clear anyway, having a skin of haze over the whole sky which thickened gradually like white sauce.
I found in processing that I also had to discard the later half dozen frames I'd taken before noticing the thickening haze.
I'd moved the FLT98 to the big Meade for this and used the H9C to guide and the M25C to take the picture.
I'd also had difficulty with flats since turning to the 98 after the 80ED. I'd taken several series of flats of different exposures from 2 to 15sec, but not solved the problem, so this time I took flats of .2, .3, .4, .5, and 1sec and found that those of .2 to .5 worked best, whereas 4 to 6 sec worked for the 80ED.
This is a busy part of the sky, just 5° above the Double Cluster, and in the frame are IC1795, the nebulosity to the top right, with IC1805, the open cluster with nebulosity, to the lower left. Between them is the small open cluster, Tombaugh 4.
The whole needs more time, as always.
Acquired in Astroart 4 and processed there and in Photoshop7.
Brian
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