Hi Goto'ers

This image I took with the 4" AP Traveler at f/6, using the
ST8 NABG and CFW8 color wheel from my back yard
last night. While it does not approach Robert Gendler's stunning
image in scale or resolution, there are some rich colors and
nice detail.

http://sciastro.net/flashca/index.htm

M42 is sort of a difficult object because it is so bright. For this
reason, I used short (30) exposures and imaged in track and
accumulate mode. To get decent tracking I again tried the trick
of training my PEC using the guider in the camera. After training
the PEC on field star near Hamal, here's the track list (M33):

ST-8 Track List
Version = 1
Snapshots = 10
Snapshot_time = 30.00
Temperature = -5.23
Height = 1020
Width = 1530
Offset = 0
0,0
-1,0
-1,-1
-1,-1
-1,-2
-2,-2
-2,-3
-2,-3
-2,-4
-2,-4
End

Exposures times were 30 seconds per frame with 30-45 sec.
per frame for readout.

The pixel scale for this was approximately 3 arcsec. per pixel, so
the total drift (due to polar alignment error) was only 6 sec. in
RA and 12 sec. in Dec. But more importantly, the the periodic
error was almost negligible! Measured guide errors during autoguiding
were consistently sub-arcsecond. I highly recommend this pro-
cedure.

Bob K.