I inadvertantly included last month's semi-finalist in the Film Forum - I have pulled the previous poll and substituted the correct line-up in its place. CH

Welcome to the April 2008 Cloudy Nights Imaging/Sketching Contest poll!

Each month the best images selected from the individual Cloudy Nights Imaging and Sketching forums will be presented for the userbase to vote on. The monthly winner receives the coveted Cloudy Nights t-shirt! At the conclusion of the poll, the entry with the highest total will be the winner of the contest..

Please choose your favorite out of all the images. This poll will remain open through May 15th at midnight EDT.

Here are the entries for April!

Beginning Imaging's Finalist - David Culp:

This is M51 + a number of faint fuzzies nearby - 3 hours in 2 min, 4 min, and 5 min subs. Shot with a Meade SN-8 with a Baader MPCC and IDAS LPR and guided with a Meade DSI on an AT66.

Film Astrophotography's Finalist - Nightfly:

Antares Region. May 3, 2008 3:00 AM Pentax 67 with 165mm F/2.8 stopped down to f/4 riding atop a Meade 2080 manually guided. 30 minutes exposure on Kodak E200 film push processed +1 stop. Scanned on an Epson 4490. Processed in Adobe PS and PixInsight LE

DSLR & Digital Camera Astro Imaging & Processing's Finalist - Igor Chekalin:

Cygnus Hydrogen 2x2 mosaic. Images were taken during 4 nights in March and April 2008 from my balcony (in center of 300k pop. town, Vis. lim ~4m)

20 + 20 + 23 + 20 frames. 5 min expositions (total exposition 7 hours), ISO1600 @ T=+9C

Canon 350D(a) (baader filter mod)
Nikkor 180/2.8 ED (with Canon EOS adapter)
Astrodon 6nm H-alpha (1.25" fixed on the back of objective via cardboard-tape-glue technology )

Mount EQ6-PRO Syn Scan. Guided with QHY-6 ccd and 75mm refractor.

Stars removed using mask, based on High-pass in Photoshop
Colors are artificial. Initial calibration and processing - Iris.

CCD Imaging & Processing's Finalist - dietmar:

NGC3718 + NGC3729 + Hickson 56 group

Location: 35 km north of Linz
Date: (10.2.+24.2.08-60min)+29.3.2008- seeing 7-8/10; transp. 9-10/10
Scope: 9" TMB Apo f/9 Lum; f/7 OSC
CCD: SXV H16 L: 27x10 min; SXVF M25C 27x10 min
Software: AstroArt4 image acqu. guiding, preprocessing: Maxim DL; Registax; CCD sharp
Processing: postprocess. PS CS2 and Pix InSight LE

Solar System Imaging's Finalist - rumples riot:

Jupiter
Taken 1738 UT on the 28 April 2008
Peltier cooled C14
Skynyx 2-0
12,651mm FL.
Processed in Registax 4, Astra Image and Photoshop CS2
750 frames per channel from avi's of 1300.
40 seconds per avi.

Sketching Forum's Finalist - Acheron:

Messier 101
GSO 300D - 12" f/5 Dobson Newtonian Reflector
Baader Hyperion 13 mm - 115x
27 April 2008 - 20:30 to 21:30 UT
Sketched from Petrova gora at 500m above mean sea level, Croatia
A4 150gr paper, graphite pencil
Scanned with Canon Lide25 and processed in Photoshop CS2

Good Luck to all our finalists!