I made a bit of a mess during the last session. On sunday afternoon it looked like we would have clear skies around 10 PM, but the forecast kept pushing forward so I had to set up the scope and just hope for the best.

My plan was to image the Jellyfish nebula, a huge supernova remnant, but right when conditions really started to improve the target moved behind my house and I had to figure something else to image for the remainder of the night.

I had two options: switch to a broadband target in Ursa Major and image till morning or try to image something low on the southern horizon and hope for the best. The smart thing would have been to go to broadband, but that meant changing the filter and re-focus and it was already getting really late. So I opted for the last option. Something went wrong though and in the morning I noticed I only had 4 good 180 second subs on NGC2359 or Thor’s Helmet and about 60 failed ones. Here’s the result.

Anyway, lessons learned and we move on to new adventures. Unless some surprise clear night pops up before new year I don’t expect to image anymore in 2023. My new UV/IR cut filter arrived today and I hope to be shooting galaxies soon.

The first thing I do in the morning is check my phone to get the latest weather updates. December is usually a horrible month to image and this year we’ve had a lot of snow on top of everything. Occasionaly some of the weather apps seem to indicate a few hours of clear skies but usually this turns around quickly and we end up with clouds.

Today I noticed some discrepancies between various websites. Ventusky seemed to indicate I was one of the lucky few in Europe with clear skies for a few hours but clearoutside showed a more pessimistic forecast.

In the end I had about 2 hours of okayish conditions to work with. Setting up was difficult though. The melting snow has turned my garden into a muddy place which increases the risk of losing balance during imaging. There were also some cold wind gusts messing with my guiding.

Normally I would go for a galaxy during this moon cycle but the lack of time and suitable targets was a real issue. In the end I decided to image the Fish Head. This is a pretty star forming region and is actually the tip of a larger object, the Heart Nebula, over 6000 light years away.

I did a quick process in HOO palette and I’m happy with the result.