Deep Sky Imaging Session - April 24 / 25, 2020

The sky this evening is clear so I started to setup early but unfortunately, my northern sky was clouded out so I can't do polar alignment and it was frustrating as the other area of the sky are clear!!!  So I missed my plan capture of NGC 2174 Monkey Head Nebula in Orion as it was setting fast in the western horizon :(

I got to do polar alignment past 8:30pm already so opted to start my imaging session to  image M46 galactic star cluster in Puppis first and had also a consolation added object inside this tight cluster,  NGC 2438 planetary nebula with total exposure of 24 minutes. I then proceed to re image the Leo Triplet Galaxies in Leo which contain NGC 3628, M65 and M66 with a much longer total exposure of 60 minutes.

I then become curious and wondering how the NGC 4039 Antennae Colliding Galaxies would look like so I also spend another 1 hour 45 minutes imaging this small but beautiful pair with an add on extra spiral galaxy NGC 4027 in Corvus.

It was past midnight already that I got carried away from a planned 2hours night imaging into an overnight imaging session as the sky was very clear! I then set my eyes on M51 Whirpool Galaxy in Canes Venatici, this galaxy was extra hard for me to image because I have a very huge Northern building arc that is obstructing my view of the North thus imagine I had to moved my entire rig from my original setup area on our roof deck to the westenmost area for me to image this object!  But I'm still happy with the output I got from a short total exposure of 45 minutes because I got obstructed again by our roof deck perimeter fence this time!

I then ended my session with the pair of M16 Eagle Nebula and M17 Swan or Omega Nebula in Serpens with a total exposure of 30 minutes and 20 minutes respectively before I catched up dawn!  I hope to give more exposure time for these 2 pairs again in the future.

I also asked myself why should  I be complaining as I'm imaging in the light polluted city sky and not in dark skies of Caliraya. Tanay or Nasugbu! :) LOL  I used again my Borg 76ED refractor with my Vixen GPDX mount with ASI294 MC Pro for this session.