NGC2903, another try

After a dismal spring this year, we have finally had quite a few nights of clear skies. And I and a few friends had to exploit his. Especially since the weather forecast is looking bad in the coming days, and the Sun is intruding more more. In a few short weeks, there will not be more astronomical twighlight this winter.
I decided to try an oldie goldie. The NGC2903 in Leo. This was the very first deep sky object I imaged in the late 90's. It was just a smeary blob on the film. This time, I decided to try autoguiding for longer sub-frame exposures. 2 minutes seemed ok, since that would allow me to evict all the frames containing satellites and bad guiding. There were a lot of satellites this night. Three satellites in different orbits raced through the tail of Leo simultaniously at one point. So it was obvious there would be a lot of streaks. Only had to evict 7 frames from the stack, so I guess I was lucky.
Tech : Pentax K5, ISO 800, 59x2 min guided exposures, TPO 6" RC, w/APCCD67 reducer (f/6), Celestron Advanced VX, stacked in DDS, processed in PS.

Black-eye galaxy

The skies do have a "black eye". And I have taken a snapshot of it. M64, in the constellation Coma Berenices. The "black eye" is quite obvious in this picture. Taken from one of our usual spots outside of Oslo. I tried a bit longer exposures this time around, using autoguider. Still haven't quite mastered the technique, and the guide-scope iced down, so PHD guider was struggling to follow the star properly, but it managed to keep the stars round'ish.
Tech details : Pentax K5, ISO 800, 45x2 min guided exposureTPO 6"RC w/APCCD67 reducer (f/6), Celestron Advanced VX.