This weekends gazing and images

I actually had a couple of clear nights over the weekend. That makes a pleasant change.

On Friday, I setup the satcatcher for Iridium 41, and grabbed that..



What I hadn't realised until I'd downloaded the files from the camera, that I'd caught a faint satellite rising out of the tree on my framing shot (I moved the camera over to avoid the tree for the flare itself)

Cosmos 1703


Oh, I should point out, that I've made a couple of mods to the SatCatcher. I've added a quick release adapter, much simpler to add the camera now and far safer as the 450d weights a lot more and I wouldn't want to mess about trying to bolt that little lot together. I've also permanently mounted a cheap compass from Lidl to the back, so no more sticking it on with bluetac and hoping it won't move.

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I then got out the 15x70 bins and had a wander around the wonders of Cassie. Firstly I slid along Kembles Cascade, although it took me a few minutes to find it, the SLR screen is a bit bright. (I'm also going to have to do something about the new addition to the LP in my garden, we seem to have acquired a half dozen white LED solar lights around the pond, looks very nice, unless you want to look at the night sky ...). Anyway, after the cascade, I went looking for the usual suspects in the area M31 first up. Found it quite easily and spent a few moments having a good look. Not a lot to see in the bins really, but it's good to see. Hopefully M31 will get high enough soon, and I'll be bothered to humb all the scope and power supplies etc out, I'll grab some AltAz imaging of it...

I then wandered across to Mirfak and it's association. Amazingly bright the association, but can't be seen without the bins. Lovely sight filling the FOV of these monsters. Then, as I was nearby anyway... I drifted my vision up till the Double was in my sights. Another treat for the eyes. Then I set the bins on the tripod, they were getting a bit heavy.... I might have to take up weight lifting if I'm going to be using these for any length of time. I set the tripod up, so that when I was leaning back in the chair, eyes looking at just the right place, the eyepieces of the bins were in just the right place. Took a little effort to achieve, but well worth it. And stared around the area of NGC457 to find me an elusive little owl. It took about 20 minutes, before I worked it out, but I did see the elusive creature in the end. Just in time to miss setting up for Iridium 20 flaring, I did see it however.

At this point the Moon was climbing over the roof of the house, so I stopped with the bins, grabbed the Vista, mounted it on my normal tripod, attached the slr via the adapters and Barlow and grabbed a shot of the moon. I tried a little experiment, as I'd picked up a Semi APO filter second hand, I used this instead, the Fringe Killer, leaves a definite Yellow tint across the entire view, so I've not tried to image with it in place. However, the Semi APO does not do this as can be seen below. Unlike most of my moon shots, taken with the 55-250 lens and heavily cropped, this is uncropped. I do have to work out the tubing though, to get focus, I had to use the star diagonal, and it all felt a little rickety....



As there is some evidence of colour in the surface in that shot, I decided to have a play and try and pull it out a little more.



At that point, as I was getting cold, I hadn't got my winter layers on, I packed up and went in.

On Saturday night, I was really pleased when at about 2030, the sky was still clear. I'd got a prediction for a somewhat more unsual Iridium flare. A Double. The first prediction of this I'd had several months ago was a wash thanks to clouds. However, this time, I got it....



I'm really pleased I managed to capture this, and couldn't believe quite how close together they were. Unfortunatly, I had things that I had to get done, so didn't get to spend time out under the stars. Of course Sunday was clouded out again. Oh well.