Quote Originally Posted by Jon Ruyle View Post
Nice, Stephen! What equipment did you use? Do you mind sharing details such as number of exposures/exposure times?

Kind of annoying that you can get this kind of result when still "new to this astro photo stuff"

Markarian's Chain is one of my favorites for visual observation in the Spring, but I have never gotten a decent astrophoto of it.

Jon.
Thanks for the kind words Jon.

Here is the basic info:
Stack of 57 light frames 90s exposures at iso 1600 using an Unmodified Canon 5dmkIII. I also took dark, bias and flat calibration frames.

For equipment, I used a William Optics Zenithstar 81 telescope (with field flattener) and Skywatcher HEQ5Pro mount (no guiding). If I recall correctly, I used NINA software for image capture (or possibly just an intervalometer, I can't remember specifically) and PixInsight for stacking and most processing.

Sorry to be "kind of annoying" but I only bought my telescope and mount this past spring so I really am new at it. I've done photography for quite a bit longer and have done a LOT of reading and watching videos about astro over the last while so that helps speed along the progress. Also helps that I'm in a fairly dark area (around bortle 3 or 4 I believe). Unfortunately, being in a northern latitude, I haven't been able to get really dark skies for a while now, so astro stuff is on hold until the dark skies return, hopefully try a few later in the summer.

Let me know if there is anything else you want to know. I'm certainly willing to share the bit I've learned so far!

Stephen