Sunday night was beautiful. A little cool but very clear. I had left my equipment set up just as it was Saturday night so everything was still aligned pretty well. Just a few minor tweaks and the GOTOs and guiding were spot on. Love it when you slew to an object and GOTO puts it dead center field of view (and stays that way). Guiding was working very well, only having to make minor adjustments. I have an error in my mount that shows itself about every half an hour or so were Dec goes a bit hairy. On this night the error was there but the guider was able to correct it without chasing it (so awesome when things work well 
).
I was originally planing to get some more time on M78 but I started by taking a couple of guided 5 minute shots of the Horsehead Nebula (IC 434) with very good results. I ended up with nearly 2 1/2 hours of exposures, with just over 2 hours of them usable. This is my best image of the Horsehead Nebula yet. Really helps when you can increase the exposure time.
This image was taken using my AT66ED with the Orion Star Shoot DSI II guided with the Orion StarShoot Autoguider on the Celestron C6. The image is a stack of 25 x 5 minute exposures combined with 5 x 5 minute darks.
Several of us had just had some discussions about the Horsehead Nebula at BBAA SkyWatch on Friday. This is one of the few things I have imaged that I have not been able to see through the eyepiece. I have tried through my scope and through others but I have not been able to make out this faint Nebula in Orion’s belt.
Very happy with this one.
