Camera mod successful!

Yes!! I've done it, muwaaahaaahaahaaaaa! Below is a shot of the remnants from the offending filter...

Many thanks to Gary Honis and his great instructions from which I was able to successfully remove the IR cut filter from the Canon 450D in just under 3 hours. As I only intend to use this camera with telescopes, I decided to just remove it outright. If certain shots require some filtering, there are always premium front-mounted filters available.

Busy making new flats and master bias...next dark period is in a week or so.

Messier 35

Filling another empty slot in my Messier portfolio, here is the open cluster M35. There is actually more stars to this as it spreads across an area almost the size of a full moon. Limited by my f/9 prime focus though, I kept the view centered on the bulk of the members.

Close Up on Alcyone, brightest of the Pleiades

Since I don't have a focal reducer for the AT6RC, the f/9 focal length
gives a bit more magnification than with the Newt. The night was so
dark and clear, thought I'd try pick one of the lights in the Pleiades
before catching up on my sleep.

Wonderful stuff.

Unguided, 1600 ISO, 250 x 15 sec. JPEG frames, noise reduction enabled, with bias/flat calibration.

NGC 7789, one of the oldest open clusters

1.6 billion years old, this cluster is one of the oldest.

Unguided, 1600 ISO, 225 x 15 sec. JPEG frames, noise reduction enabled, 250/173 bias/flat calibration.