Messier 44, Behive Cluster
There was no other object until now, where i got data from more sessions than from the Beehive Cluster. I think it were 4 or 5 evenings. The final picture was processed using data from 3 evenings.
In May i processed the data from all 3 evenings with Affinity Photo. I reprocessed the data in december 2023.
Lessons Learned
Since i did the processing a few weeks after i collected the data, i can’t really remember any problems. Dithering worked!
Technical overview
| Telescope | VIXEN ED80sf |
| Focal Length | 600mm |
| Aperture ratio | 7.5 |
| Erecting Lense | – |
| Filter | – |
| Mount | Skywatcher HEQ-5 |
| Goto-Control | EKOS |
| Mount Control | INDI |
| Guiding Scope Focal Length | 162 mm |
| Guiding Camera Chip | 4.8mm x 3.6mm, 8bit |
| Guiding Camera Resolution | 1280×960 |
| Guiding Software | EKOS, INDI |
| Dithering | only in the 3rd session: 3 pixel |
| Camera | CANON EOS M100(a) |
| Method | focal projection |
| Camera angle | 0° |
| Camera Control | EKOS, INDI, Gphoto2 |
| Photography Date | 02/28/2021 03/01/2021 04/27/2021 |
| Exposure-Time Lights | 55x120s |
| Sensitivity | ISO 400 |
| Calibrationframes | Flats, Bias |
| Processing Date | 05/22/2021 |
| Reprocessing Date | 12/24/2023 |
| Stacking, Integration | Affinity Photo |
| Processing Software | Affinity Photo and SiriL |
| Image Editing | Affinity Photo |
| Reprocessing Software | PixInsight |
| Capture Place | Koblenz, Deutschland |
| Lightpollution | Bortle 5 |
| Scattered light | strong |
