First Light, Skymaster 15x70 and a star trail

Thanks to Andy (high25 @ AC), I'm now the proud owner of a set of 15x70 monster bins. I got the monster bins out (they are pretty darn big, at least compared to the 10x25, 10x50 and 12x50 bins), after adjusting them earlier today in daylight. Whilst I was trying to capture the star trails shot, I had a good look around with them. The light grasp is something else, for a handheld easy to use and point instrument, they are nearly as good as my scope. I had a look through the milky way and got totally lost in the huge number of stars... (seems to be happening a lot at the moment ).

Then I decided I really ought to have a look at a few targets.. M31 was up first, and the view was much better than bins, almost as good as the scope.
Then onto the Mirfak assoc, almost filling the field of view. Same with the double cluster, up to Cassie and the clusters around there were clear. I had a thought I'd go find Mr Kemble's starfall, and after only a moments search, found Kemble's cascade quite easily, and the cluster at it's bottomost end was quite clear (I don't remember it's designation).

I then turned around and had a look for the coat hanger, having found this once, it's much easier to find, and it nearly filled the FOV. Onto Jupiter and the moons were easier to see thanks to the higher mag, but it was harder to keep still. I couldn't use the tripod as the camera was on it

Then someone turned the lights on, and that knackered that.

Great set of Bins, and they are going to get lots of use.

My star trails shot, after a bit of experimentation to get the right settings, 10 minutes f3.5 iso100, NC tools to remove LP and colour grad looks like :

Observing in proper dark

I've been away camping for the past week, and despite the usual cloud and rain I always get, I manage to get a couple of gaps during the week and one absolutely clear and stunning night.

The Thursday before going away, I set up to catch an Iridium Flare, and decided to sacrifice pin point stars to get closer to the action, as it were. So instead of using the kit lens at 18mm, I went for 55mm. This meant the stars in the background trailed, but the flare itself nearly filled the FOV, much better image scale.



The night before going away, I managed to catch the moon early on, before the clouds moved in, Jupiter is in the shot too



Over the course of the week, I managed to get a few shots of the moon, although the cloud wasn't being the most helpful.













And one amazing sunrise
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On Monday 18th, there were a few gaps in the clouds, and I was able to see Jupiter, Arcturus, Deneb and the Moon. I did get the bins out to try and have a look at Jupiter, but in the time it took to mount the bins on the tripod with the bin mount, the cloud gap had closed.

Wednesday 20th, revealed a few larger cloud gaps. I grabbed the bins to see what could be seen. The middle of Perseus was visible, so had a peek at the Mirfak association, had a good look at Jupiter, but either all the moons were hiding or I just couldn't make them out, possibly thin cloud. And around Cassie.

Then on Friday 22nd, after a promising afternoon, the weather pixies decided to be kind and night settled about clear and crisp. As the evening wore in, it became increasingly clear just how good the skies were going to turn out to be. The town above which we were camping, was quite small and therefore doesn't have a large number of streetlamps to mucky up the skies. The Southern aspect looked straight out into the English Channel and the campsite itself, was distinctly lacking in lighting (Gutted I wasn't). So when the lightening of the western sky finally faded my first thought was OH WOW!!!!!. The milky way shone above me like an iridescent bridge across the sky.

I just stood there staring for a few minutes at this amazing sight. I then grabbed the camera, setup on the tripod, and started grabbing some widefield shots. Once this was setup and running I had a further look around, sharing the sights with one of my fellow campers. I was amazed to see Ursa Minor, normally I can only see Polaris, but I definitely saw 5 or 6 of the stars, possibly all 7. After a little time hunting around, I was also able to find M31. At this point I still hadn't got the bins out.

I grabbed the bins and started scanning. I just couldn't get my bearings as there were just so many stars and I wandered around across the heavens just gawping at the sheer numbers of pin points of light above me for some time. I then remembered the other camper and handed the bins over. I directed them to look at the Mirfak Association the double in Perseus and M31. They were quite amazed also at the number of stars. We also took at a look at Jupiter and could clearly see 3 moons. Io to the left, then on the right, Europa and Callisto. I then stole back my bins and spent some few minutes studying the moon. The detail was very sharp, but too fine to be able to pinpoint many of the features.

I then took a look at the Perseus double cluster and had a nose around Cassie. I then had a wander out to Kembles cascade and had a good look around there. I did see a couple of clusters in the area, and checking on Stellarium, I reckon they were IC1808, NGC1027 and IC1848.

I then turned around and had a scan of the southern sky and again just spent some time lost in the sheer scale of it all. I did stumble across the coat hanger, and grabbed some shots of this too.

I then had to turn in as it was getting cold and the lenses were all beginning to mist up. However, I had an absolutely amazing time looking about me and it's renewed my enthusiasm. I really enjoyed that.

Here's the results of the stacks of images I grabbed

Jupiter and the Milky Way



Cygnus



The Coat hanger in the Milky Way



The night of returning from Holiday I was able to catch a Flare, Iridium 80 and a guest

A couple of good clear nights

Haven't had this in quite some time, a couple of clear nights. It's been great.

Wednesday 13th August, I didn't get a lot of specific observing done, as I was out looking for Perseids. I definitely saw one low and fast to the east. I also managed to get some photos.

The Moon


The Moon and Jupiter


And I caught one Perseid in this shot, upper left


Then onto last night. 14th August, Whilst I was out capturing the images for my other posts, I used the Lidl Bins for a good look around. I started out with looking at the Moon (I did consider getting the scope out, but it's too low and I can't make the scope high enough). However, even using the bins, there's plenty of sights to see upon the face of Lunar, identifying them now that's another ballgame entirely.

I then had a wander around Cassie, Perseus and Andromeda. M103 and NGC663 were first up, easy to find now after various hunting sessions last winter. Nearby the double, NDC869 and 884. Of course the Mirfak Assoc, can't miss that one out. I then went back up to Cassie, and followed the line across looking for the Kemble Cascade. I'm pretty sure I found it. Then back to Andromeda for a peek at M31. I really enjoyed the combination of taking images and viewing with the bins.

Here's the images
The Moon, this is a crop of the image using the 55-250 at 250mm


Iridium 63, Mag -4, the position of this put the flare smack bang in the middle of Perseus, crossing the Mirfak Associaton, at 55mm on the kit lens


I caught a satellite passing through Cassiopeia whilst capturing images for a little experiment


And finally my little experiment. I wanted to try and capture a sequence of shots spaced out to show the effect of rotation. I setup the camera at 55mm, and used my timer remote to take 5 x 30 second exposures, at 3 minute intervals. I will be doing this again, but I setup to try this before the flare and really wanted to capture that, so ran out of time. Sorry about the scale, but to make the image of a reasonable size it has to be.

The Moon through my scope - a first

I took a photo last night after the storm, and a couple tonight. Tonight I used the Vista 80s on my new mini Manfrotto tripod (cheers Andy) with the 450d attached at prime. I've attempted to make the crop the same size on all three for scale.

250mm (camera lens) - last night after the storm


400mm (scope) - Tonight


800mm (scope + 2x barlow) - Tonight


I didn't use the fringe killer on the scope for these images, and I seem to have some light bloom or something around the centre, maybe I should have used the ND filter. The only real downside to having used the scope, I've now got dust spots on my sensor which I didn't have yesterday. I've managed to shift all bar one of them with the blower and self clean, and that one is slap bang in the upper middle of the frame , grrr.

A few flares

The weather has been rubbish for Astronomy for the past week. So no chance to get out and try for my next AstroPhoto target M31. Ho Hum. I've managed to get a few flares though...

Iridium 90



Iridium 10



Iridium 83 - this was supposed to be part of a double flare image. The predictions from Orbitron showed 2 flares within 10 seconds of each other and less than 10 degrees apart. Of course the clouds only parted enough to show one of them, the other would be lower down and on the right of the one you can see.



The later mag -8 flare could only just be seen through the clouds and got washed out in the orange reflected light.

The Partial Solar Eclipse

When I woke up, it looked promising for the eclipse, so after a few minutes thought, I came up with a plan for an impromptu Solar Projection device. This basically involved using a ruler attached between the Bino mount and tripod head with some card attached. Then with the Binos attached, the Binos would project onto the card. Like so



With some cloud dodging I managed to capture six images using the above device and merged them into a montage. I appear to have got a little distortion on the image, and I'm not sure if this is because of the flex in the card or the angle on the camera. Either way, I'm not sure it matters.



This has raised some interesting questions about Solar observing, and I think I have now found a use for my Celestron 60mm Frac. I'll just need some Solar Film.... Might be time for a call to FLO.