What a week! I had 5 straight clear nights, not much sleep but some great viewing. My PC must have been overworked with all the processing and Thursday morning it gave up completly with a pop and smell of burning. The replacement arrived midday Friday and although I missed Friday evening I was back imaging by Saturday.

Now I have to re-install everything and that has led to an issue. K3CCDTools which I’ve used exclusively for processing FIT images requires a key which is linked to the PC. I’ve written to Peter Katreniak for a replacement registration code but I have so many images to process I’ve had to make a start with Registax.

(Received the reg code and started processing straight away – thanks Peter).

So these first images may need revisiting in the future, but for now I’ve done some quick processing.

Last evening turned into a Messier Marathon with me tackling 14 “M’s” mostly in and around Ursa Major. The purpose for me was to get an idea of what they look like so that I can target them properly, if they are within the limits of my equipment, on the next clear night.

So here they are:

M63 – Canes Venatici

M51 in Ursa Major

M3 in Canes Venatici

There are more to follow, but as with M109 (above) I suffered from misting and also from dust doughnuts and twice had to clean the CCD cover during the session. I have just returned from the local camera shop where I’ve purchased a lens cleaning cloth and a puffer brush which should make removing dust a little easier.

All images taken with Atik 16ic, 254mm (10″) Newtonian Scope on EQ6 Pro mount with EQMOD. Stacked and stretched in Registax.