Ah! New (FASTER) Labtop AND Dark Skies!

I had a sense that the Infinity Software for the Atik Horizons camera I purchased this summer was taxing our four-year old laptop.....  But when the temperatures dropped to about 20 F, it became PAINFULLY slow!  We were due for a new laptop anyway =)

In looking for what best to buy, we wanted something that will be used both for astrophotography and also as our family laptop <3  AND - we didn't want to spend a lot of $$ ;-)  The parameters I ended up focusing on was: 1) Solid State Drive and 2) tested against MIL-STD 180G specifically for humidity, and temperature extremes.  After a fair bit of looking, I finally ordered an HP ProBook directly from HP.  So far ~ so good :-)

I took advantage of clear skies, relatively warm temperatures ( ~ 30 F), and a moonless night January 4, 2019 and set up in our  driveway to image.  Instead of imaging only 3 objects in about 4 hours, I imaged NINE wonderful objects in about 4 hours!  The overall operating speed is CRAZY IMPROVED!!!

Here are some shots I took

I couldn't decide which image I liked best of the Orion Nebula <3

M82, Cigar Nebula

M81, Bode's Nebula

Not at all like the photos I see online ~ but can you see a Horsehead in these images?