IC5146 the Cocoon Nebula

A habit of astrophotographers is to keep fiddling, never know when to stop. So this is a reprocessing of the data. No major change but several little bits of fiddling with curves. Is it any better? A matter of personal opinion of course, but I think I prefer this to the others.

More frames taken of the Cocoon to make a total of 4 hours 50 mins. The second set wasn't as good as the first but serviceable. I'd lost 5 during the night, one to a lost guide star through cloud and 4 to haze and dawn.
I stacked all of the frames together in Astroart, and though it did the job well, I'd have had to crop and reduce the size of the photograph, so I processed them separately then stacked and did the rotating in Photoshop and retained the full size. Hopefully the difference is apparent.

Taken 23.7.12, on a good clear night when the Milky Way was easily seen right across the sky, from Austerfield.
This is in a part of Cygnus, full of stars, being in the middle of the Milky Way band. The nebula is known for the dark nebulosity, Barnard 168, flowing round it and westwards from it.
The how? SX M25C camera in a William 98FLT, guided by an SX H9C, both on an AP 900GTO mount. The exposure was 36x300sec. Acquisition and calibration with flats and biases in Astroart, with final processing in Photoshop.

M13

Taken on 18.7.12 with a Canon 500D through the WO 98FLT, on the AP 900GTO mount at Austerfield.
This is my first attempt with the 500D, and the night was reasonably clear if only for a short while, but a joy to be able to work on something other than the Sun.
There is quite a lot of local light pollution so I always use an IDAS filter and fitting one to the Canon caused some thought. But I obtained a filter holder from Gerd Neumann, connected it to a M42x1 thread to Canon adapter. I haven't an easy means of connecting my usual field flattener and you can see the result of doing without it. I'll have to sort something out for that.
I used the 500D's built-in capability to take darks rather than take them separately, as the clear sky wasn't there for long. No flats taken either as this was taken to test possibilities.
Stacked in Astroart and processed in Photoshop CS2. The exposure was 10x60sec set at ISO400.

Sunspot 1520

A group of sunspots taken yesterday 11 July a single exposure 1/100 sec canon 450d using a skywatcher 150mm and baader solar film.

The Sun on 5.7.12

This is a first venture into astrophotography by Bill Hughes, using a Canon 600D in a Sky-Watcher 127MC and a homemade white light filter made from Baader film. A single shot, the setting were 1/1000sec at ISO400. Processed in Photoshop Elements 10.
Lots of activity there.