A View From My Observatory

The last few weeks I have been imaging several galaxies in around the Big Dipper region of Ursa Major. There are eleven Messier objects associated within this region and I have captured eight of them but only processed four so far. You may notice the trees in the way. Although I do have open sky off to the south and I have a clear opening to Polaris, directly overhead is a challenge. I have to wait for 'windows' but most are around two hours. The ones that are not are M81 and M82 which are only good for about 30 minutes. I imaged for these for 30 minutes over four nights.

There is no camera attached to the ED80 as it was being used to take this photo. If you look closely at the second star of the handle, Mizar, you can see a smaller companion star, Alcor.

Big Dipper
Location: Happy Frog Observatory, Monroe, CT
Date: 4-2-17
Camera: Canon EOS Rebel T3i(a)
Lens: Opteka Fisheye 8mm
Barlow: None
Focal Length: 8mm
f/3.2
Focal Reducer: none
Mount: fixed

Filter: Astrodon UV/IR
Autoguiding: none
Exposure: 1 x 15s
ISO: 1600
Temp: 5 C
Post Processing: Photoshop, Lightroom