I have finally succeeded in capturing an object, but, not after having a night fraught with bad weather and technical difficulties. After having spent five hours going through my setup and precise polar alignment via drift alignment, I used the hand controller of my telescope to slew the optical tube assembly towards zenith for one final alignment check, only to find out that the hand controller had turned itself off. I turned the telescope's main power unit off and on again, and there was still no power. The telescope doesn't function without the hand controller powered up. I thought, what a waste. I felt like kicking the damn thing, breaking it, and even had thoughts about selling it. I have spent a reasonable sum of money on my equipment and only get to use it once a month, and even then, the last few months have been disasters. Having said that, I believe the issue to be with the cable connector which leads from the telescope into the hand controller, and it should be an easy problem to fix, either through purchasing a new cable, or repairing the existing one.

My friend, who I went with to the farmstay, where I bagged this image, felt so much pity towards me (as he had invited me), that he ended up packing up his own camera equipment and allowed me full use of his beautiful William Optics Zenithstar 105mm triplet fluorite apochromatic refractor, and his Losmandy G-11 mount for the remainder of the night.

As such, I dedicate this image to Louie - the best astrobuddy anyone could ask for.

Full view for maximum effect.

The Tarantula Nebula in Dorado

The Tarantula Nebula (NGC2070) resides in the Large Magellanic Cloud, and is one of the sky's biggest emission nebulae. It has a central cluster of bright young stars and gaseous extensions that make up the wispy "legs"; the Tarantula Nebula is very easily found in the southern hemisphere's night sky, even with the naked eye. This object has a diameter of more than 1,000 light years, and observed from Earth, appears to take up almost as much space in the sky as a full Moon. In actual size, it is 100 times the size of the Orion Nebula. It is an object of gracious beauty in both binoculars and telescopes: a cloud of delicate filaments, wisps of nebulosity, dark lanes and bright stars that are a pleasure to observe. This mighty object was initially recorded and catalogued as a star (30 Doradus).

This composite consists of one set of images; one set of 30 images taken at ISO-800.
Each individual image was a 120 second exposure.
IRIS was used to calibrate each image (dark subtraction [median combined master dark] and flat field division [median combined master flat {lights and darks}]), to register, align, and finally stack.
Photoshop CS2 was used to adjust levels, curves, colour balance, frame and resize the final composite.

Target: The Tarantula Nebula in Dorado
Date: Saturday, July 29th, 2006
Time: First image: 3:50:00 AM
Time: Last image: 4:09:32 AM
Location: Lake Bathurst, NSW, Australia
Camera: Canon EOS-350D (unmodified)
Lens: N/A
Telescope: William Optics Zenithstar 105mm triplet fluorite apochromatic refractor
Focal length: 735mm (F/7.0)
Mount: Losmandy G-11
Alignment: Polar alignment via drift alignment
Exposure: 30 x 120 seconds @ ISO-800 (RAW)
Software: IRIS: Calibration, registration, stacking; Adobe Photoshop CS2: post-processing and framing