Last night (11/02/2013) I went over to my friend Andy's house for 3 hours at 38° (BRRrr) and had my first real night of imaging where I did most of the work instead of Andy doing everything for me. I managed to Image The Pleiades, Ring Nebula, and the Dumbbell Nebula. How ever at this time have not figure out how to use Deep Sky Stacker and as of now have no images to show for my nights work. Every attempt to stack my images has resulted in a message stating that only 1 of 120 images will be stacked. I think that maybe there is too much distortion in the images to allow the software to lock onto the stars. I will be taking the images to Andy later to see what he can do with them.
If it turns out that it is a result of the scope not being stable enough I will move up my purchase date on getting a new Celestron Advanced VX 8" EdgeHD to replace my Meade ETX-125ec. It is my plan to remove the ETX from the fork and put a dovetail on it so I can use it on the Advanced VX mount as a Planetary viewing / imaging scope both it and the 8" EdgeHD should make a good grab and go setup for me to learn on. Coupled with a Mallincam Astro video camera, and the best Starlight Express CCD I can afford should put me well on my way to learning the basics of Astrophotography.
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