M44 - Praesepe in Cancer




The last time I worked on M44 was in December 2008 with a William 98 and focal reducer/flattener. This time with the Tak 106 without a focal reducer. The night wasn't good enough for the nebulae planned so M44 was chosen, still didn't get enough time on it before interrupted by clouds. The camera was the M25C, never fails, and the guiding was done with the H9C in the Vixen 260L with focal reducer. A habit now but it helps to brighten stars to give me a wider choice to guide on.
Calibration was done with master flat and master bias frames in Astroart, then finally processed in Photoshop.
I've recently had a cataract removed from one of my eyes, and the change in colours is remarkable. I now realise that the old eye sees everything as through a yellow filter and the new eye is clear and without the filter. So blues are BLUE with the new eye but a greenish blue with the old. When the other eye's cataract has been removed I'll probably have to reprocess all my old photographs, and there are hundreds.

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