Cool, Nice, Sunday Night

The Clear Sky Clock ( www.clearskyclock.com ) said that the skies would be good last night, so I headed up for a night of astrophotography, and testing some astronomy gear. I had a chance to finally try out the new AstroTrac TT320X mount. I trained my modified Canon DSLR on the Pleiades, which was rising in the east. Using a Sigma 70-200 f2.8 APO zoom lens, I shot the open cluster for 30 minutes, trying to bring out the subtle nebulosity around the starts in the cluster, without blowing out (overexposing) the stars. The image and info is below.

Camera - Hap Griffin Modified Canon EOS 350D
Lens - Sigma 70-200 MM f2.8 Lens, set at 200MM - f2.8 - ISO 800 - (320MM effective focal length)
30 Minutes of exposure (10 x3 minutes)
AstroTrac TT320X Astrophotography mount for tracking