Pleiades and Jupiter/Venus

Good to Stargaze was predicting good skies starting around 2am this morning, so last night I set up the Pleiades from 01:54 to 04:24 (astro dawn). Then I entered coordinates for a spot in between Jupiter and Venus, to run until sunrise, 04:34 to 06:04.

Here is M 45, the Pleiades. 495 subs, 15 seconds, 80 gain, astro filter. Taken from atop Galaxy. I got the idea for trying 80 gain from a posting on Facebook with the same setting. Processed in StellarStudio “auto”, and cropped in Photos.

Here is the Jupiter/Venus picture. 182 subs, 40 gain, astro filter. Processed in StellarStudio “auto”, and cropped in Photos.

Without the cropping, it looks quite messy. I think this is partly because the stack consists of subs from nearly astronomical twilight up until the battery died.

Speaking of the battery dying, I decided to just run the telescope on its own battery, since it was starting around 2:00 with a 92% battery. It didn’t make it all the way until sunrise. Good to know.