Cassie, Andromeda and Perseus and others

I waited till past midnight, the witches come around and turn off 90% of the streetlights, I tested out the timer remote. I set the camera up as normal, 30 seconds, f3.5, ISO800, mirror lockup and 2 second timer. I set the remote timer for 45 second interval (to allow for the 2 second mirror lockup and the post image display), and for 60 repititions. Then hit start, and used the bins for a good look around the same area. It's been a while and I wanted to check if I could remember where things were. I found the double cluster and the Mirfak Assoc easily, although it took me a while to find Andromeda, odd considering how big it is. I also saw 3 satellites pass over in differing directions at the same time and a streaker off to the south. Of course, a thin strand of cloud started to wander in just to spoil my captures, but I got 37 of the 60 I'd set out for, giving me some 19.5 min exposure. Stacked in DSS, it took a while. I then loaded the autosave.tif (instead of the one I saved) as this is a 32bit image. Then converting it to 16bit allows for some adjustments, and I boosted the exposure a little and reduced the gamma. Cropped it to get rid of the weird smearing in top right and bottom left corners. Gradx to start, then levels to get rid of the ends with no data in, curves to lighten, and boost contrast. NC's lp removal, more curves to lighten and boost contrast, and I ended up with this



The Mirfak Association, the Perseus Double and M31 are clear in there. I've kinda got lost in what I can see. I'm sure there's an M or 2 in Cassiopeia in there as well and no doubt other objects too.

Satellite Marathon - 24th July

I decided to set myself a challenge and attempt to image all the satellites brighter than mag 3.5 passing over tonight. I nearly succeeded. I missed the early ISS pass, HA appears to have been 3 minutes out on the ISS all night, and I didn't work it out till the second pass. The first couple are there, in the middle of the image, but they are damn hard to see (sorry the sky was really bright and I can't process this side of things). I was fighting clouds, low flying aircraft and windy conditions.

ISS - Missed, prediction early by 3 minutes

Lacrosse 3 (it's there promise)


Cosmos 1143 Rocket (also there, but nearly hiding in the clouds)


Envisat - missed

EAS - Missed

Cosmos 2236 Rocket



ISS - With a surprise guest of Cosmos 2082 Rocket


Cosmos 1154 Rocket


Cosmos 1844 Rocket
[img]http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg118/johns_bucketofphotos/astro/c1844r.jpg[/img]

Cosmos 1484 + unknown special guest


Helios 1A Rocket


And finally the ISS fades into shadow (well nearly)

Another large update

The lack of opportunity to observe has been getting to me, and I haven't been updating as regularly as I'd like. However, the nights have definatly started drawing in again, so hopefully this sense of lethargy and apathy about observing will being to fade too.

Here's the latest crop of images. A number of moon shots..

The ISS








Some Moons, both night and day













I'm not sure what I'm going to do with all my lunar pictures. I've been thinking I might try some form of phase Montage. And a Lunar effects shot

Updating for the past few days,

The weather has been bad for ages, with only the odd gap. Couple that with the light nights, and the scope hasn't been out in a couple of months. Haven't even ventured out with the bins for over 4 weeks. Anyway, I've taken a few astro photo's over the past week or so and here's the lot.

The ISS - 2 images joined together


Iridium 61


Iridium 19


Iridium 10


The ISS another double image merged


The ISS sailing off into the distance


Iridium 80 (this was a mag -8 flare)


and a widefield shot of cassie, just testing this area out with the 450d. There were too many clouds around for attempting a stack.




The moon from the 19th


And the 20th


The 21st


and with some subtle colour


A Daylight moon from the 22nd


and last nights moon (23rd)


And a little effects shot to bring out the clouds

Iridium 8 and the moon

I managed to get out for a few minutes last night, first time in ages, the moon is nearly full. The weather here has just been rubbish for ages. I managed to get a couple of images, one of Iridium 8 and one of the Moon.

Iridium 8, the prediction was about 30 seconds early, so I didn't catch the complete flare, but it's come out ok anyway. Using the kit lens at 18mm



A few minutes later, after swapping for the 55-250 lens at 250mm cropped

All Aboard

The sky cleared for a brief period yesterday evening. I popped out to grab a few shots of the moon using the 55-250 IS lens for the 450d. Whilst snapping, I heard a plane, checked around, and there is was heading towards the moon. So I waited, and timed the shot to get a conjunction of Lunar and Plane.



Within an hour the clouds were back, covering the sky completely. Which is a shame as HA was predicting a mag -3 flare.

The Moon through the clouds

Last night there were some quite dense clouds in the west, with the odd gap in them. I managed to catch the moon in the gaps from time to time. Taken using the 450d with the 55-250 lens at 250mm. Handheld.

Final attempt at the Swan

I had another go at processing the Cygnus widefield. After finding a way of reviewing all the taken frames that is. I found that only the first 17 were clear of clouds, so that explains some of the oddities I was seeing. So after restacking this 17, doing some processing, LP removal, Gradient removal, noise reduction etc, I finally ended up with :



I appear to have lost some colour, but I'm happy with the result. It looks a lot better now.

I also found that in one of the frames I had an intruder, which I hadn't realised. I processed this single frame and this is what came out :



The Satellite track is, I believe, Lacrosse 2.