Hi All- Sorry I'm a little late to chime in here and affirm what you were all saying about saturday night. Roger Ceragioli and a friend joined me near the 6,000 foot level at Kitt Peak - they doing visual observing and I was expanding my D20a portfolio. Once I had the autoguider going, I was able to join them a few times - the seeing was quite superb, demonstrated by the excellent views of Jupiter thru their 8" scope at nearly 300X. I was shooting thru my 11.25" F/3.5 with a Paracor and the Canon 20Da. Here are a few of the shots: First off, a slightly cropped view of the moon, exposed for the earthshine http://alice.as.arizona.edu/~ketelsen/Moonlongexp_s.jpg Took a long time to get some momentum, but eventually got set up and a guide star on M101. This is 20 minutes of exposure, aligned and levels adjusted. By the way, I turn on the auto dark subtraction, so the 20 minutes of exposure also had 20 minutes of dark subtracted as well. http://alice.as.arizona.edu/~ketelsen/M101ave5_s.jpg I did a sequence on SW3 - I thought I was autoguiding on the comet nucleus, but about the time it passed a star near the beginning of the sequence, it obviously jumped to the star. I took a break in the van and when I came back, the comet had moved to near the edge of the field. So much for keeping the comet centered... Anyway, here is a single 3 minute exposure from that sequence: http://alice.as.arizona.edu/~ketelsen/SW3_s.jpg Next to my faves - I'm a fan of dark nebulae, so one of the first on my photographic hit list was the Snake Nebula, B72. This one just blew me away as I was watching them come out on the LCD screen. Cropped slightly from the full frame, it is an average of 5 - 4 minute exposures. All except the moon were at an ISO of 1600. http://alice.as.arizona.edu/~ketelsen/B72ave5_s.jpg Another favorite visual object is B86 above the spout of the Teapot. This is in such a bright Milky Way cloud that I had to drop the exposures down to 2 minutes! This is an average of 6 of them, 12 minutes total exposure: http://alice.as.arizona.edu/~ketelsen/B86ave6_s.jpg And just before dawn broke, I got in a sequence on M20, another favorite of mine, and again, was astounded by what the 20Da was able to capture in a short time. This is an average of 5 frames, 16 minutes total exposure: http://alice.as.arizona.edu/~ketelsen/M20ave5_s.jpg It was my first all nighter for some time - I had wanted to start collecting summer Milky Way objects for a Grand Canyon talk, and fortunately, I was inspired to stick to it and stay up. A draining night, but a great time. I hope you all enjoy the images... -Dean -- See message header for info on list archives or unsubscribing, and please send personal replies to the author, not the list.