This is another picture of M65 and M66 including NGC3628. It was taken with my Celestron Ultima 8 with the f6.3 focal reducer. It was autoguided with the ST-4 for about 35 minutes. The ST-4 was giving almost all E readings and I thought this shot would be terrible. It was windy, my polar alignment was pretty bad and I lined the shot up using only my telrad. I didn't even know if I got M65 or M66. To top that off, I brought the film to a 60 minute photo and told them to just develop the film and not to cut it. I brought it home and proceeded to cut it up into 4 frame strips. Thinking I had a blank frame, I cut right through the middle of this one. You would not believe the string of expletives when I realized what I had done and that the shot actually looked like it might be pretty good.
Well, I taped the edges together and ran it through the scanner, brought it into Photoshop, zoomed way in on it and used the clone tool to take the split out. Phew! Just goes to show you, if the equipment doesn't get you, and the weather doesn't get you, you've still got yourself to watch out for.
