Hayden Gill, a member of our Cuyahoga Astronomical Association (CAA) braved a very cold but crystal-clear February night collecting image data to create this picture; it was also his very successful first effort at image stacking.

Gill wrote: “I shot it with a Nikon D7200 on a SkyWatcher EvoStar 80ED {telescope}, CGEM II mount. For guiding I have a 60mm ZWO scope and a ZWO 174 mono” guide camera. He used his Nikon for the data capture and Deep Sky Stacker to build the image. Each exposure was two minutes at ISO 800. He used 34 light images, 20 darks, 20 flats, 25 bias frames. Post processing was in Photoshop.

“This was my first attempt at astrophotography stacking. First time stacking and first time really putting all my gear to use how I have been intending to. Can’t wait to get back out!”

We will be eager to see Gill’s continued progress and images!