14.8.09

A wider look at Cygnus

What looked as though it might be a clear(ish) evening tempted me to try a wide field shot of Cygnus with a 50mm lens. It turned out to be a frustrating session with a fair bit of contrail residue about and then endless patches of more substantial cloud drifting across making it difficult to get any exposures unaffected by their presence. I managed to get 5 that were usable though none of them was totally free of reflection problems. The resulting image was better than I expected though I look forward to another go on a clearer evening. I was intrigued by the oval ring feature on top of the North America Nebula and suspected a photographic artifact until I looked at some other images which also showed it to a greater or lesser degree. The Crescent Nebula (of my recent main scope photo) can be made out at bottom right though it looks very tiny. Details: 450D with 50mm lens @ F.4....5x 7 minute exposures @ iso400 with CLS in DSS & XAT Image Optimizer.

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