Clear, cold (upper 20s F), night. Just a little sliver of the 15% waxing Crescent Moon in the SW sky. I uncovered the AT66ED to capture the March Sky-Watcher USA TOTM, LDN 1622 or the Boogeyman Nebula. The dark nebula LDN 1622 is a dense interstellar clouds of gas and dust located in the constellation of Orion.

Orion is pretty high in the sky after dark and I only get about 3 hours before it goes into the trees to the SW. After doing a polar alignment and dialing in the focus I started the NINA sequence at 7:25 PM and captured 3 hours of light (and dark) from the Boogeyman Nebula.

Primary (Imaging)	Secondary (Guiding)
Scope: Astro-Tech AT66ED with .8 Focal Reducer (320mm – F/4.8) Filter: None Camera: ZWO ASI294 MC Pro, Cooled to -10 C Focuser: Gemini Autostar Focuser Mount: Sky Watcher EQ6-R Pro	Scope: SVBONY SV165 30mm F/4 Guide Scope Camera: Orion Star Shooter Autoguider (OSSAG)
Telescope Control, Image Acquisition, and Image Processing Software
Equipment Control and Imaging Software: NINA/PHD2/ASCOM on a Mini-PC Processing Software: Siril’s Interactive Companion (Sirilic), PixInsight

This is 60 x 180 second exposures at 121 gain, 30 offset, and bin 2×2. Captured using a NINA advanced sequence, stacked with Sirilic, and processed in PixInsight.

It’s not great but it is there. There are some weird reflections around the brighter stars, I think my image train has flexed a bit to cause this. The open cluster NGC 2112 is visible in the upper right of the FOV.

I might revisit the Boogeyman later in the month. I’ll wait to try to get some more time on LDN 1622 before I submit it for the March 2025 Sky-Watcher USA Target of the Month.

For now I am going to swap out the scopes and put the 102 back on the mount to hunt some galaxies. I’ll see how this dark nebula frames up in the 102 field of view. I do some tinkering on the AT66ED to get things tightened up and aligned.