Stargazing Heres my pic of m36 taken the other night

[twinsen]

Heres my pic of m36 taken the other night its a 1 min unguided shot through my canon 300mm lens @ f4
the focus is horrible and it wasnt aligned but it is my first ever astrophoto shot.

The second shot is Earth'shine the flaring is due to the overexposure of the moon i think but this is unavoidable.

Alex

 

[russ_watters]

Good start. Two suggestions:

For the first, since it is on a fixed-mount, you can try taking a half dozen to a dozen 15 second exposures and stacking them with a program like Registax. It'll be sharper and brighter.

For the second, you can take several exposures of different lengths and composite them in photoshop. I'm working on an Earth'shine pic as well.

 

[twinsen]

When i say unguided i mean it was on a motorised EQ mount but without any kind of pec adjustment or guiding.
If it was on a stationary mount a 1min exposure would leave star trails half way across the fov lol

Alex

 

[russ_watters]

Oh. Hmm... at only 300mm, I wouldn't think that PE would show up. But yeah, you're right - even at 300mm, the Earth's rotation would be a lot more...