First Post! - Star Party

Hi everyone, here goes with my astronomy blog...

I made it up to Hereford in April for the 5th stargazerslounge star party. The weather, surprisingly, gave us 2 clear nights out of 3 and a particular Icelandic volcano meant no air traffic to contend with - result!!
After initial camera trouble (the power lead broke) I was able to image for about 4hrs each night.

I concentrated on one target, M101. Here's 60 x 6mins (6hrs) worth:

Darks, flats and bias used. Stacked in deepskystacker and processed in PS CS3.

And an image of the Moon showing Earthshine.

The bright crescent is as a result of light directly from the Sun reflecting off the Moon's surface, whereas the rest of the Moon is visible due to reflected light from the Earth (much less).

I'm hoping to put up a few recent images and some info about the equipment I use soon....