Gear:

• Canon EOS 200D
• Tokina AT-X Pro SD 11-16mm f/2.8 (IF) DX
• Tripod
• Star Adventurer 2i tracking mount (with shutter release cable)

Weather:

• Light cloud (~10%)

Location:

• Garden

Software

• Rawtherapee - RAW file importing, optical correction & image processing
• ASTAP - Image stacking / general astrophotography toolset
• GIMP - RAW/TIF to JPEG, cropping

Not a great image, looking South/West - You can just about make out Deneb (Cygnus) descending below the tree line here. Quite a noisy image - not the best, though looking very closely you can barely make out the tiny form of the Andromeda galaxy at the upper left corner.

Fig. 1: EOS 200D, Tokina f/2.8 11-16mm. F4.0, 16mm, ISO800, 5x180s Fig. 2: Single 180s, ISO800 frame taken from unaltered RAW sequence

Looking East, with Capella (Auriga constellation), Mirfak (Persus) and the Pleaides cluster visible in the centre of the image.

Fig. 3: EOS 200D, Tokina f/2.8 11-16mm. F4.0, 11mm, ISO800, 5x180s Fig. 4: Single 180s, ISO800 frame taken from unaltered RAW sequence

Reducing ISO to 800 and increasing exposure didn't work too well; also the sky wasn't as clear as I thought, with the main tree-line sequence particularly plagued by thin cloud. Next time I'll increase the ISO back up again and reduce the exposures back to 60-120 seconds, with more exposures if possible.

I have a possible location that I can take images from that is within 10 minutes walking distance from the house… it should be subject to less light polution - which, along with the very high angle I need to image from in the garden, is one of the biggest problems here. I'm aiming to try it out the next available (clear skies, dry ground [Ha! In Winter, in the UK?] weekend.