Fuzzy blobs and beautiful swirls - its galaxy season!
Fuzzy blobs and beautiful swirls - its galaxy season! I know this hobby can throw a number of curve balls your way from time to time, usually when you least expect it and have to react to a situation to save an imaging session from cloud rolling in or a sudden downpour from a seemingly clear sky. But the challenges of capturing distant galaxies in itself has proved a real test for me and several times I've had to re-think my setup and strategy just to gather the data I want. It's also made me re-consider my equipment needs - but I'll come to that later.... So what have I learnt so far? Space is big...... really big! OK, so I stole this phrase (and obvious statement) from the excellent work of Douglas Adams but when it comes to galaxy season I can relate. I mean, galaxies are massive structures, several million light years across and packed with billions of stars. But, all things being relative, they are relatively tiny in my scope's field of view. Even throu