ROAST ::

October 3 was a fully clear night at last, with 0% chance of rain, so I did a schedule of three objects. The nights are getting much longer now, and the schedule ran from 8:00pm to 5:00am the next morning. I always connect a power bank when doing schedules (essential when it’s running for 9 hours), and next morning the Mini still had 100% power and the power bank still had some reserve. The bank I was using was from Lidl, the Tronic rated at 20,000mAh.

This is IC 417 and NGC 1931 in Auriga, known as the Spider and the Fly respectively. The Spider is an emission nebula about 7,100 light years away, while the smaller emission and reflection Fly nebula is a bit further, at 7,500 ly.

Details:
Target: IC 417 (Spider Nebula)
Equipment: Dwarf Mini, Duo-Band, perfect EQ
Time: 2026-10-04 01:04-05:00
Integration: 3hrs 32mins (212×60secs, +2 failures), gain 60
Conditions: Clear, waning gibbous Moon; Bortle 6
Processing: PhotoDesk equalisation, gamma

The middle session was yet another go at the Triangulum Galaxy, M 33. This is the result of megastacking all my efforts to date, 6 sessions combining 623 images using Astro and Duo-Band filters:

Better, but still needs improvement. I’m hopeful that when the Draco arrives it will do much better at this target.

And so to bed…