M1 with IR Filter

Got me an Astronomik IR cut-off filter. And I think it improved things a lot! As a first try, M1 was targetted. This is a 20x150 sec exposure with equal darks. Flats were taken the next morning at dawn (this is one area I don’t know if I am doing the right thing yet) 130 x 15 sec flats corrected for Bias calculated from a median of 10x0 sec bias frames. Again I had some field rotation. I need to do a Drift alignment one of these days and at least nail the altitude bolts. Lateral adjustment should then be ok. Anyways, the subs were aligned with Maxim DL after calibrating in Astroart 2.0. I like Maxim DL, I may end up buying it after the trial period. Need to investigate if Maxim DL will work as my image acquisition software too.
Notice that even though focus is off just by a little bit (I think I am getting better though) the stars are are nice little circles :) This is a big improvement over my previous images. You do notice a lot of noise in this image, partly because of poor seeing conditions and also because there was an 80% moon out when I did this. With dark skies, better seeing conditions and better focus this will get better.