Lightning bolt using my diy auto trigger 19th July 2014

 Taken from my open window this was the first time I've had chance to test my intervalometer's built in lightning detector. As you can see it works to my delight. I just have to set my camera, plug in the intervalometer and every time there is a flash it almost instantly takes a picture.
In the intervalometer I can change the sensitivity at any time to adjust for the ambient light conditions. The only thing it cannot do is to point the camera in the right direction so I did miss a lot where the camera took a picture of a bright sky with no lightning. The setting for this shot were ISO800 F7.1 for 2 seconds. Probably not the best settings as normally I would use ISO100 for 4 or5 seconds but I just caught this one at these settings.

The Coathanger asterism

Brocchi's cluster (known as the coathanger)lies in the constellation of Vulpecula and is not actually a cluster but a random alignment of 10 stars. Easy to find with a pair of binoculars it lies about one third of the way along an imaginary line between Altair and Vega surrounded by the milky way. Its best viewed in July or August. This image was taken with my barndoor mount and 200mm lens. A very bright Moon was near by so I had to use 20 x 20 second exposures and 5 darks and 2 flats. I added the lines to show the coathanger but through binoculars these 10 stars easily outshine those nearby.