Good May Weather

New image: M101 the Pinwheel Galaxy.

May is not always the best month for clear skies in the middle of the country with a typically wet weather pattern. The past week however has been clear with moderate temperatures. But moderate temperatures at night is not what you want with a DSLR camera: the noise level is much higher than when it is colder at night.

The new image of M101 was taken on Friday and Saturday night in the Flint Hills. Night time temperatures only dropped into the mid 60s. Thermal noise was much greater than I like but a large number of exposures helped smooth out the image.