20:34 – 06:30
Setup in the light polluted Adeje town north of the TF1. We are staying in a 3 story townhouse and I am imaging from the 2nd floor terrace.
I have brought with me for the first time the ZWO ASI2600MC AIR and I am imaging with that using the small 220 built in guide chip for guiding and imaging through the Esprit 100 whilst trying to cut down the light pollution using the Antlia Triband RGB filter.
Focusing on completing my Messier collection, given the full moon, I am imaging M38 an open cluster. Taking 60s exposures to try and keep the chance of over exposing the stars, I am also West of the Meridian and at a starting imaging altitude of 55 degrees thus limiting the ingress of light into the telescope.
After 2 hours I moved on to M48 another open cluster. Again it was reasonably high at 42 degrees to allow for 2 hours of imaging before I hit the lights of the buildings. Imaging overhead is clearly what is needed after looking at the last few images of M38.
Another 2 hours completed and I then had a hard choice of what to image past the meridian, away from the Moon but before the lights of the buildings. I landed up targeting M109 to the left, along with NGC 3953 to the right of centre and NGC 391 to the far right. One of the stars making up the constellation of Ursa Major, 64 Gamma Uma can be seen. I went back to sleep and woke up around 7am to shut down the imaging run. A good first night.
