ROAST ::

It’s been a long wait, but we finally had some clear skies last night. And here’s a “Megastack” of M101, the Pinwheel galaxy. The Dwarf Mini can combine images taken over different observing sessions, at different times and dates. Here it’s a stack of 295 images taken over three nights — the Megastack processing takes a while, 50 minutes in this case:

Some post-processing in PhotoDesk: gamma, equalisation and cropping. Compare with the image taken on March 18.

I also managed a not entirely successful shot of Bode’s galaxy, this time getting the Cigar galaxy, M82, in the shot:

Better luck next time; clouds started rolling in for this.

Finally, the Moon:

Again not very good, due to haze.