🔠2022 Gear Overview - I know it is 2023, but this hasn’t changed
Overview
It has been a few months since I last took any pictures, the last being Pleiades Dec 4 2022. This winter was hard. There were not many clear nights, and some of the clear nights were so cold I did not want to go outside. I feel like I missed out on some of the long dark nights.
Getting everything set up and ready to go again took me a bit longer than it used to. It also didn’t get dark until 9:00 or so. Focusing my telescope took the longest for some reason, it was like I forgot how to do that.
Once I got everything focused and polar aligned, then I had to find a target. This is where some better planning could have come in handy. I was looking for a target in a specific area of the sky, which I knew I would be able to capture all night. There are not very many clear paths through the sky in my backyard, so I was a bit limited. The moon was also out, so that limited where I could shoot because I did not want to get too close to that.
I ended up on the star cluster Messier 3. It is in the Canes Venatici (Hunting Dogs) constellation.
Capture Details
I took 360 2-minute subs
Total capture time: 12 hours
I also took the corresponding calibration frames
Output
