18 Jun 2021 - NGC700 (North America Nebula)

15 Lights with 300s exposure time

Canon EOS 700Da with 300mm Lens

using Optolong L-Extreme filter. 

Processed and stacked with Affinity Photo.

This is the first time I used KStars/Ekos. The guiding still does not work perfectly, because Ekos is more sensitive to mount backlashes. During last month I already reduced the backlash of my mount, perhaps still not good enough?! 

The is a small banding visible, but not horizontal or vertical so it does not have to do with the typical banding of a DSLR camera. 

It is still very difficult to find the focus of a camera lens, at least it is much easier to meet the focus when using a telescope, however this object requires a much smaller focus length to fit into the field of view of the camera. 

17 Jun 2021 - M13

15 Lights with 60s exposure time

Canon EOS 700Da with 80/600 Telescope

using Baader Moon and Skyglow filter. 

Processed and stacked with Affinity Photo.

Captured using KStars/Ekos. I build my own telescope pier in my backyard. Using Ekos I improved my polar alignment, which is now in the range of 20“. This significantly improved my guiding.  

17 Jun 2021 - NGC6960 Veil Nebula

24 Lights with 300s exposure time

Canon EOS 700Da with 80/600 Telescope

using Optolong L-Extreme filter, no darks. 

Processed and stacked with Affinity Photo.

Captured using KStars/Ekos. I’m still having trouble with the Ekos Capture & Solve feature. It works fine with my guiding camera, but always fails with my Canon. For this reason I cannot frame my objects as I want (or it would take too much time). Need to find a solution for this. Finding the focus with the L-Extreme filter is still another problem. 

29 Jul 2021 - NGC6888 Crescent Nebula

20 Lights with 400s exposure time

Canon EOS 700Da with 80/600 Telescope

using Optolong L-Extreme filter, no darks. 

Processed and stacked with Affinity Photo.

Captured using KStars/Ekos. Focusing is still a nightmare. I’m having trouble creating darks with the same temperature and the nights are so short, 

08 Aug 2021 - Veil Nebula

Only 8 lights with 360s exposure time

Canon EOS 700Da with 300mm lens

using Optolong L-Extreme filter, no darks. 

Processed and stacked with Affinity Photo.

Captured using KStars/Ekos.  At lot of things went wrong during this night: 

Ekos autofocus feature did not work with my lens., 

Plate solving failed and Auto guiding worked very bad for unknown reasons, maybe due to seeing conditions and a misbalanced mount. I dithered for every image. Planned were 40 subframes, but due to a lot of time spent on trouble shooting only 8 subframes were available after 4 hours. 

03 Sep 2021 - IC 1396 Elephant trunk nebula

20 lights with 420s exposure time

Canon EOS 700Da with 250mm lens

using Optolong L-Extreme filter, no darks. 

Processed and stacked with Affinity Photo.

Captured using KStars/Ekos.  Some problems with guiding this night, planned were 40 lights but during the 6 hours night only 20 lights could be captured.  However, I tried this target several nights and always a lot of things just went wrong. Now it is enough for me, I will give this another trial next year. :-)

04 Sep 2021 - M31 Andromeda galaxy

40 lights with 300s exposure time

Canon EOS 700Da with 80/600 telescope

using Baader Neodymium filter, no darks. 

Processed and stacked with Affinity Photo.

Captured using KStars/Ekos.  Guiding/Dithering worked perfectly using the GPG guiding. I used a Bathinov mask on Vega for focusing and I think such a mask is worth the little money it costs.