I was finally able to get out to my dark site again, on a night that was supposed to relatively mild, for March. It turned out to be the coldest night that I've been there . The only thing that made it tolerable, was the fact there wasn't a breath of wind.
M81/ M82
I've finally had the chance, during the current "Holiday Season" , to start to relearn an advanced software program "PixInsight" specifically designed for astrophotography.
These are the results using it to reprocess my last three outing's photos.
You should be able to find something out east of you ! It might not be on "public property", but there are plenty of off the beaten path county roads down there that should be just as good !
My secondary dark site is a grey zone, just a few minutes further drive and verging on black, but it's...
I can send you GPS coordinates to my pullout if you want, though i think I'm going to move 1/2 mi further east next time out.
Where are you driving from ?
I shoot from the closest section near Ft. Collins. It's a "dark blue" zone. As long as dont't shoot back to the SW, towards the "modest" Greeley light dome, the skies in any other direction are very dark. The east section , further out has patches of "Black Zone" skies.
OTA="Optical Tube Assembly= New telescope, a 65mm/f7 quad APO.
By "mobile", I can now drive everything out to the Pawnee National grasslands an hour east.
Aug 20, 2017, the night before the solar eclipse from Jay Em, WY and my new (old) manual focus Nikon 180mm ED
The sun goes dark
Last trip out to the Pawnee, a couple of weeks ago, Nikon 180mmED again
" Are these assemblies of multiple shots stacked together? Hard to get the fine streamers in the corona and the red chromosphere visible in the same exposure as the bright corona otherwise. Were you tracking?"
No tracking and all are just single shots of varying exposure lengths.
I got to check out a new potential "dark site" this past Monday out in the Pawnee Grasslands. Between the blowing dust, humidity , and smoke from the Utah fire, things weren't that dark, but I did come away with this, using my 85mm lens and Nikon D5300.