M13, The Great Cluster in Hercules

I took 50 flat frames, and used the 6 darks taken last night, as well as 50 bias frames, and calibrated and stacked 16 images (each 60 second exposures), and combined them in MaximDL to get this image. No other processing.  The colour could be improved, as the data is there, but requires increasing the saturation.  This would bring out the blues and reds in the stars better.

Setting Up for Flats

C8 with cameras and cables (I always tidy the cables if I am going to image,  but with the clouds, it wasn't necessary)

The clouds have returned, as forecast, but I set up anyway as I needed to take some flats to enable calibration of the images I took yesterday of M13.  I took care not to change focus, or to turn the camera, or make any other changes to the telescope.  I have found the skyflats plugin for MaximDL written by John Winfield to be an excellent little tool for getting flats at dusk.  The plug-in automatically adjusts exposure length to compensate for the declining brightness of the sky so the average ADU of the flats are within the range required (approximately 25,000 ADU for my QHY8L).

 I also find sky flats better than the light box I built; probably something to do with the LED light source I used not having the right spectrum of light.

After the flats were taken, the sun lit up the clouds over south east London:

C8 at Sunset

I've left the telescope set up as there is a possibility that the clouds will clear at 11pm, and behind the strom front could be a window of opportunity... Until then I will process the shots of M13 I took last night.