Last night it was clear and there was no moon. I headed out with my telescope to see what I could see, and ended up photographing Messier 5, which is a globular cluster.
This composite is made from about 100 images, each 3 seconds exposure with my Celestron NexStar 127 SLT and Canon EOS 600D, processed with Registax.
I’m a novice at deep-sky astrophotography and I’m reasonably pleased with my first attempt at photographing a cluster like this. The only deep-sky object I’ve photographed before is the Orion Nebula (M42).
I know a poor workman always blames his tools, but I wish I had chosen a Newtonian telescope rather than a Maksutov, simply for its light-collecting ability. I would also like to be able to expose for longer than 3 seconds, but unfortunately my inexpensive Celestron NexStar doesn’t slew smoothly, meaning anything longer than 3 seconds gets blurred. With a steadier mount, I could expose for longer and resolve more of the dimmer stars in Messier 5.
Jonathan Gazeley 