Mall Astrophotography

January 12, 2000

I haven't had much chance to take any pictures lately, what with Christmas and the weather. Tonight I decided to try 'remote' observing, by going outside in the back yard, setting up and carefully aligning the telescope, putting the QuickCam on, and then throwing the AutoStar and all the other cables through the window and attaching the camera to my desktop computer.

I brought up a view window, and used SkyTools to generate a finder chart for M1. Then, from the desk, I told the telescope to point to Zeta Tau. Success! Then I carefully star-hopped to where the chart showed M1 - but I couldn't see it. I then took 200 exposures, hoping that it would turn up when I stacked all the images together. Voila! The Crab Nebula:

The Crab