Im_A_Dumbell

Certainly not my best work but this does represent a first step for me. This is my very first astrophotograph from a non-urban site. This is from the LBJ Grasslands north east of Alvord, TX. Skies there are about as dark as I remember them from the days of my youth.

This image is the only salvageable frame from a night that was one failure after another. I forgot my focus masks, fumbled about with the polar alignment software, forgot some tools and by the time I had everything right the batteries were nearly dead. In the end I was nearly finished with the second exposure of a planned series of 10 minute exposure when the battery on the laptop died. I took my dark frames manually with the manual shutter control and a stopwatch. What fun! It was at this point that I learned I forgot to set the ISO to 1600, it was still at 200. Argh! Still I did rescue one good frame which I present here.

1 x 600 seconds. ISO 200.

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