The North America Nebula (NGC 7000)

Posted by Ron Yates
on Sunday, July 3, 2016

Fellow Louisville Astronomical Society (LAS) member Frank Kennedy and I spent Friday (July 2, 2015) cleaning and mowing in the hot sun out at the LAS observatory, at Curby, Indiana. Frank left at around 4:00, and I decided to stay a while because although the forecast wasn't very good, the sky appeared to be clearing. Boy did it ever clear (though there was a bit of a breeze, which affected the seeing a bit but kept the dew to a minimum - and it did get a bit nippy for summer at the end). I also decided to experiment with the 80mm Williams Optics Megrez Semi-APO mounted on the vintage Astrophysics 142mm f7 Starfire because I have wanted to try my hand at wide field astrophotography for a long time. I mounted my Hutech-modified Canon T1i with a Baader UV/IR cut filter to the Megrez, and used the Astrophysics refractor as a guide scope. After nearly an hour of trying to get decent focus and guiding, it finally settled down, so I took 12 5-minute exposures of NGC7000 at ISO1600, the North American Nebula. This is my first decent widefield image, and I think it came out rather well for a first light with this configuration. Enjoy:

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