All with Canon 40D, kit 18-55 lens at f/5.6, 30 second exposure, ISO 800, in-camera noise subtraction, shot RAW, daylight white balance, manually focused, controlled by Backyard EOS. Atop custom barn door tracker with alt-az base and Mamiya tripod. Lens heated. Filter removed.
9:38 PM. Aimed south-south-east so to include Sirius. Camera upright. Light pollution from Newmarket. Not polar aligned in any way.
You can see the Great Orion Nebula, 42 and 45 Orionis, ι (iota) Ori, Meissa, Collinder 69, et al. The open cluster NGC 1981 north of 42-45 is obvious when you zoom in. There's just a hint of Messier 41 below Sirius. Lepus is in the trees.
9:57 PM. Aimed south-south-west so to embrace Pleiades. Camera inverted. Polaris in the finder scope.
Taurus is lovely. A few of the double stars are visible within, like θ (theta) 1 and 2, σ (sigma) 1 and 2. Orange Menkar is peeking through the branches on the right.
In these photos, Betelgeuse looks the same magnitude as Bellatrix, maybe even a touch brighter.
I didn't realise it at the time but the lens was at 24mm. I wanted 18. That's why I couldn't seem to fit everything...
Both images slightly enhanced in Digital Photo Professional 4.6: brightened, boosted contrast, dropped the shadows, boosted saturation, rotated as needed, scaled.
Good transparency, good seeing, humidity low at 42%, air temperature around -11°C.
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Got a good result, finally, from stacking.
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Identified objects in the photo.
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