EOS Ra - fumbling around in the dark (PICS)

EOS M6 + EF-M 22mm f/2 STM lens.
This is pretty much all I could see in the dark. I had to drop a glowstick and use some red flashlights to avoid tripping over things I couldn't see.  I have a light on the brim of my cap and when I turned it on a gigantic moth (the size of a sparrow) flew into my face.There was a bat flapping around my head looking for insects and any faint  noises I made caused a dog in the distance to bark the entire time.

Taken with: EOS M6 + EF-M 22mm f/2 STM lens.
A slightly longer exposure showing what was around me.  An issue with figuring out the gears resulted in this contraption becoming an overpriced tripod. The Canon EOS Ra is visible on the right with the RF 85mm f/1.2L USM lens attached. This image was in total darkness at the time. It's odd to see what a slightly long exposure resolved here.

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I spent the night before last in almost complete darkness in a Rural area (see first image above), probably too close to a fairly busy road.  The weather cleared for first evening after months of cloud and rain... so it seemed like an opportunity to try out the Ra again.  My Celestron PowerTank Pro battery finally arrived after COVID-19 affected lithium trade and supply from China.  This was the first time for me to try and figure out how to use the EQ Mount (oversized computer driven tripod).
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Unfortunately for me, I was unable to resolve a gear that kept slipping and was incapable of getting me a polar alignment. In the end I just used the mount as a gigantic tripod. I figured out the problem just a few hours ago so I'll just wait for the clouds to clear before trying again. The camera still managed to capture images that were between 10 seconds and 13 seconds long. I took some images to familiarize myself with the camera some more. The Dew set in within a couple of hours so I packed up and drove home again after taking the images below.  When I figure out what I'm doing, I hope to get some tighter images with longer focal length lenses. To do that I need to sort out some basic long exposure with sky tracking.  These are just single exposures on the RF 85mm lens at the moment.
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Canon EOS M6 + EF-M 22mm f/2 STM lens.
EOS Ra on a frozen EQ Mount next to a busy road. At least it was warm out this time.

EOS Ra + RF 85mm f/1.2L USM lens.
A short exposure of the Carina Nebula.... it seems to be 'upside down' at this time of the year.  I also seemed to pick up on the blue stars the last time I tried to photograph this same subject with the Ra in 2020.

EOS Ra + RF 85mm f/1.2L USM lens.
The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMG) - a dwarf galaxy that orbits our own

EOS Ra + RF 85mm f/1.2L USM lens.
The Small Magellanic Cloud (SMG) - another dwarf galaxy that orbits ours... with the slightly orange colored globular cluster of 47 Tucanae on the right of it.

EOS Ra + RF 85mm f/1.2L USM lens.
I'm going to need a longer lens to capture the Pleiades. Some banding from airglow etc this close to the horizon. At least that's my assumption.

EOS Ra + RF 85mm f/.1.2L USM lens.
The Orion Constellation with Bernard's Loop, Orion Nebula and the (tiny) Horsehead nebula.

EOS Ra + RF 85mm f/1.2L USM lens mounted to a rail on the EQ Mount.  I had to pull the gearbox of the mount open to see why it was slipping on the gears. Didn't need the Red Dot Sight after all.

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The interesting thing was that on New Year's Eve, I was waiting for my wife and her girlfriend to light up some sparklers for a 10-second long exposure with the R6 on a tripod (see thread post here ). Looking up over the street light, I noticed the constellation Orion was in the sky overhead so I took a moment to capture a shot (below). The light pollution from the suburban light meant that I had to keep the ISO down to 200 to avoid overexposure. Yesterday it dawned on me that I'd taken two images of the constellation of Orion - one with the R6 and one with the Ra. Both were 10 second exposures. I hadn't seen Bernard's Loop before but it was interesting to see it show up on a 10 second JPEG exposure from the Ra. It wasn't noticeable when I tried to photograph Orion late last year. I might shoot some RAW images when I get the mount up and running properly. I'm still getting used to the equipment so these are just experimental shots at the moment.

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Comparison between the R6 & Ra cameras with the RF 85mm f/1.2L USM lens - both shots were 10 seconds long. Couldn't go any higher with the R6 ISO setting due to light pollution in the suburbs.  It was just washing out the image when I tried.

iPhone - A view of the Orion Nebula on the 30x Live View on the EOS Ra late last year.