Noctilucent Clouds -the movie!

I missed any NLC displays in 2008 so I'm glad to have caught a couple of displays(so far ) this month. I have to go about 400yds N of my garden to view the North horizon. This time lapse movie is a series of 3second exposures every 30sec. 11PM GMT 17th June.

M27 The Dumbell Nebula

Stayed up late to see the interesting side of the sky again.
M27 The Dumbell Nebula in Vulpecula et Anser (The Fox and the Goose)
A little trailing (!) again but it's nice to have colour in the images again.
4X5min

Arcturus

A picture of a bright star in it's field can look good- specially when there's a little colour.
In fact this pic is the result of some autoguider tweaking.
Unlike Pete R I haven't been changing the PHD settings, (yet) just tightening any mechanical flexure I can think of.
1 10 minute frame @ 800iso

Dust Bunnies Galore

This is a lesson stating that you shouldn't get your dslr sensor in as bad a state as this one.
I know it's a picture of the daytime sky at f22 but those shadows still show through the scope or fast lens. I did get it commercially cleaned, and will probably do it myself next time.
The trick is not to leave the camera sans lens for too long, and when it is - point in down so the dust doesn't fall onto it.

Thinking aloud

For some of my deep sky shots I have been taking dark frames (should be for them all) and although I have just had my sensor cleaned, I really should do flat frames as well. There are various designs for these on the web from bulky boxes to laptop screens.
My thought is to get a (cheap) digital photo frame and load it with a "white" photo. should work - shouldn't it? Anyway I think that's the plan.

Lunar badlands

This shows the Hippalus Rilles concentric with wrinkle ridges on Mare Humorum.

Also seen are Hesiodus and Ramsden rilles. See Rukl 52/53.
This was mostly shot through thin cloud so I'm pretty happy with it.
120ED refractor + meade 2.8x barlow f21
mosaic of 5x60 second avi captures
click on image for larger view

Closer to home

With a bright moon in the sky I turned my attention to our neighbours.

I'm fairly pleased with this effort from a 60sec avi sequence.120mm aperture @ f15 (using 2x barlow) Registax 5