John's Astro Blog

GSO 6"RC Proper Deep Sky First Light

2011-03-08T15:24:00.000Z

Finally... a clear night without a layer of high mist...

I knew what I was going to do, so got setup, used a 1 star sync with EQMOD, then the goto to M51, and that plonked M51 within the FOV of the 450d on the RC.

16 x 10 minutes @ ISO800, darks and flats
Imaging setup: GSO 6" RC, Canon 450d
Guiding: QHY5v, Konus Vista 80s
Mount: HEQ5
Software: PHD, APT, DSS and PS

I could have framed it better, but the image scale is a big improvement on the 80ED... This is uncropped.

There are a couple of issues... I discovered that my normal Av mode flats, again came out underexposed... I've no idea why, but as I knew what I was looking for, that was easily dealt with. The collimation is out, using liveview zoomed, I did a quick star test, and the airy disk has a slight list, but I wasn't going to let that stop me, as I really just wanted to get some data with it. I found when dismantling that I hadn't tightened both thumb screws, so may have had some camera flex, and I'm not 100% convinced I nailed focus.

But... I'm happy

M42 - Over the last three years

2011-03-04T10:03:00.000Z

I thought it might be interesting to look back at my attempts at M42 over the last three years and compare the results.

All taken with the same 450d

Konus Vista 80s, NexStar SLT (AltAz)

C80ED, Unguidded

C80ED, Guided HEQ5

The reason my first attempt is so read, I used a Semi APO filter to help with the CA, and it removed a lot of blue.

Practice and improvements in kit and technique have really helped.

Stick it in the bin

2011-02-26T04:44:00.000Z

I so nearly didn't bother with posting this... however... having had such a run of heavy cloud, I could actually see some stars on Thursday... I was wondering what it was I was looking at. Anyway... I've been waiting and waiting to try and add some more data to my M42 and see if I couldn't tease out the faint dusty regions around the main nebula. The plan being to ideally grab 4 hours of 10 minute exposures. Ah how plans never quite work out how you want...

Turns out, there was some thin cloud, not enough to spoil the view, but enough to spoil looking for the faint stuff, dew was terrible, within an hour, the OTA's were dripping, so of course, had to keep getting the hair dryer out... I don't get it, but my ST80 stayed much clearer with the after market camping mat fitted then the 80ED... have to look at that, but I suspect it's to do with the shape of the fitted dew shield.

And of course, it's a bit late in the year now to be trying something like this as with only 2 hours captured, Orion was sinking into the orange flow.

And then of course, there was the power... or rather lack of it.. my main battery died after a fair number of subs, to give it it's due, but the backup lasted 2 and the flats. Oh, the flats, I don't know what happened, but using the technique I always use, the flats were horribly under exposed, so they got ditched, as they introduced a pile of bright vignetting.

Then the laptop cooling fan developed an odd noise.. I'd have to say caused by dust, so need to take it apart and give the fan a good hoover.

Not a good night really... still... a couple of good points...

1) The guiding held without any issues, after the previous occasions fits in RA
2) APT works really well

Having written all this, I spose I'd better post the image, prior to consigning it to Dusty... (in case you're too young to remember... have a look for a TV program called 3-2-1 ... writing that makes me feel old).

Oh yes, I couldn't be bothered overlaying any of my previous bits of images to sort out the core, which is totally blown, although to be honest, it's the first time on a deep sky image, I've had the highlight clipping warning showing on the camera preview

And why is it, that despite adding the process tif to DSS, deselecting it, right clicking it and making it the reference frame, did DSS not align all the other frames on it ?

Update - Deep Sky

2011-02-23T08:59:00.000Z

There has been a distinct lack of opportunity for deep sky this winter, mores the pity.

First up, a wide field of Auriga... this was shot with the nifty fifty

I started to add the Messier clusters in Auriga to add to the widefield base image, but that's got lost somewhere

M38 and the smiley face

I discovered with this one, the focuser was not tightly locked onto the MaxDSLR connector and it could wobble ever so slightly... blast... I've resolved that one with a 1/4 turn of the thumb screw...

M36

And I moved on from here, on the same night to have a go at M42.. shame the clouds moved in to quickly, as I only got 7 subs for the core and 2 subs for the neb... I was amazed at how much detail I was able to get out of only 2 subs though.

However, I was able to get a decent run a couple of nights later, and managed 25 subs...

I really want to get at least 4 hours of 10 minute subs to see if I can't pull out the faint stuff in the background... there's hints of it in here, but it's not enough to pull out.

Then finally, after getting the RC, I went back to M38 for a first light, all was setup easily, although I do need the second counter weight. But I had a weird issue with guiding... I lost the first two subs as PHD decided mid way through to give the RA axis a major kick... I don't know why. The laptop was making some odd noises also, whilst PHD was guiding. I stopped guiding, enabled again and that was all fine. Then after 2 subs, the clouds moved in...

Bit irritated I only got 2 subs, but it's worked nicely. There's some odd star shapes in one corner, but I think that's from my home made dew shield being a bit long and sagging slightly. Next try, I'll do it without it.

Update - Lunar

2011-02-23T08:25:00.000Z

Oh.. how many for this one...

Oh well...

C80ED, 2xTC, 450d on a camera tripod

and with some colour

in the mist

For some Earthshine

A little different

Another Earthshine

And the Storm moon

Been some great Lunar halo's over the past couple of months, these are all 2 frame vertical panorama's

And then a couple of mosaics... most complete, one spoilt by cloud

Then I got a new scope, a GSO 6RC, a very well built piece of kit, solid with a superb focuser. More resolution that the 80ED, and a greater focal length. Not had a chance to really push it yet... but it's working well so far

Only 7 panes to test it out

and 20 panes

Updates - Solar

2011-02-23T08:15:00.000Z

Oh Boy... I'm so far behind...

I'm just gonna have to split the images into groups and post them... I can't remember anything anymore...

So... Lets start with Solar..

These were all taken with a C80ED, 2xTC, 450d with Baader solar film, mounted on a camera tripod

And far more interesting

These next few were shot with a QHY5v and consist of the best 25% of frames taken from 1000 frame avis, and are when AR1150 was around

More Sun and moon, and at last some deep sky

2010-10-26T12:04:00.000+01:00

I'm gonna have to work on getting this updated a bit more regularly..

The sun is an interesting and challenging target and I've been having fun with white light imaging. These are all with the C80ED, 2xTC and 450d mounted on a camera tripod.

Then I put together the above images into an Animation

It could do with some adjustments... but I've added some more and adjusted the alignment, I'm hoping to add a few more shots to get 14 days worth..

And I had a go at, what I thought was AR1117, but it looks like it was AR1119 instead with the 5v

The moon mosaic I tried didn't work as well as I'd hoped.. I really struggled with the sheer number of files and the amount of storage needed (my own fault for using a 5x barlow)... and it meant that I ended up having to take long breaks whilst dealing with the data files before I could capture the next set...

The nearly full moon (single shot)

And the early morning moon

I also managed to do some Deep Sky... I figured it best to go for a reasonably easy to find target, as I'd not done any Deep Sky in months, and make sure I could remember how to setup and get all the bits working together... It worked well.

The Double Cluster.

Some more Sun, Moon and Jupiter and a quick binocular session

2010-10-07T09:46:00.000+01:00

I need to update again... I need to try and keep on top of this more... Ho Hum... So not in time order again....

Just one Sun shot... C80ED, 2xTC, 450d and smooth Baader solar filter

And a crop of AR 1109 and 1110 from the above image. I'm impressed how well this has come out.

One of these weeks, there might be time, and clear skies on a weekend to allow me to try some real close up stuff.

The Harvest Moon, a single shot from the 450d, with the 2xTC on the C80ED

and with some colour lifted out

I had a play with the moon, completing a full mosaic, a terminator mosaic in a bit closer, and some other bits a bit closer still. The seeing wasn't great...

A 24 pane mosaic, 250 of 1000 frames per pane, C80ED, Celestron Ultima x2 Barlow and QHY5v stacked with Avistacks, stitched in MS ICE.

Click for full size

Then a mosaic of the Terminator, with a single tube between barlow and camera

Click for full size

And some bits and pieces with an extra tube

And finally, The moon in the blue sky

I got back from the AS meet quite late, having had a quick look afterwards for Hartley2 with my 15x70's from the car park. Not great conditions, a bit murky, but I did point the bins at Mirfak, and a couple of others, had a look.

I got home, and it was still clear, so I dug out my 10x50's and trotted out into the garden for a look around. I started out trying to find the comet again, even after referring to the computer, I still failed to find it. But hey ho... another night maybe.

So I had a general look around... Nice to see some winter sights appearing again... M31 was an easy find, as was the double cluster and the Mirfak association. I found a couple of other clusters I wasn't expecting to see either side of Mirfak (M34 and NGC1444). M45 was, as usual, a stunning sight in the bins.

After only 10 minutes looking around, I took the bins away from my eyes to see if I could spot the location of the comment, and spent a couple of minutes looking to confirm what I was seeing, as it couldn't be right. But no... with a little averted vision, I was able to see smudges where the Double Cluster, the Mirfak Association and M31 are.

The bad news is, that was all the time I could afford, as I had to get up for work early, so I quickly swung around to look at Kembles cascade (I couldn't believe how easily I spotted it) running down to the little cluster at the bottom (who's name/designation I forget) and headed in.

And finally, a couple of attempts at some LRGB imaging, only using the QHY5v...

C80ED, QHY5v, Ultima x2 Barlow

L-500 of 2000 frames
RGB-300 of 800 frames

Then with 60mm of tubes between camera and barlow

250 of 1000 frames of each LRGB

These could have been better, I need to work on this, it's harder than I expected. It wasn't helped with few on the objective of course. And I need to work out if the exposure levels need adjusting for each colour, as the exposures seem to be rather different.

Some Sun, Moon and Jupiter

2010-09-24T08:27:00.000+01:00

Ok, lets start with the Sun... it's been a bit noticeable by it's absence behind thick layers of clouds recently, but there have been a few peeks... Oldest first...

The first two were shot with the NexStar 60

Then these two were with the same filter cell on the C80ED

Another with the NexStar

And finally with the C80ED but with a proper filter cell, designed to fit, not home brew, and no ripples in the filter itself (makes quite a difference)

And onto the Moon

A few quick single frames, all with the C80ED and 2x TC

And finally the Harvest moon

I had a go at some closeup work, whilst setting up for a bash at Jupiter the other night, QHY5v with a 5x barlow on the C80ED. Each is about 500 of 1800 frames.

Schiller to bailey

Sinus Iridium to Pythagorus

Grimaldi to Cavalerius

And finally, after months of waiting, clouds covering the moon at the best point in the cycle, I finally got Aristarchus

And onto Jupiter

I had a bash at my first RGB image, I don't have the equipment to do this properly, and I don't have imaging filters, just cheapy wratten filters. This was using a 2x barlow and some tubes on the C80ED with the QHY5v. I'm rather pleased with how it came out. I do need to adjust the size of the blue filter, as it's about 0.5mm to large to fit in the filter holder. This is 300 of 1000 frames in each colour

I had a bash (whilst getting the single frame moon shots) at Jupiter with the SLR, not ideal equipment, but when I cropped in, I was amazed to find, that not only had I got the Galilean moons, but also some surface details

I also had a try at getting both Jupiter and Uranus in the same field of view. Much harder than it sounds... still.. C80ED, 2xTC with the 450d. It took some work to fit them both in, and I ended up having to take two exposures, one for Jupiter and one to include Uranus, I was aiming to try and get some detail on Jupiter (although it's really rather hard to see at this size. Jupiter is obvious, Uranus is the star in the upper left.

And finally, I had a bash at Jupiter with the 5x barlow. I opted to try some LRGB imaging this time, but rather than use filters, used two cameras, one mono for the L and one colour for the RGB. It worked nicely too...

C80ED, Antares 5x Barlow

L - QHY5v

RGB - SPC900

LRGB - Combined

And the normal orientation

I'm really pleased with that last combined Jupiter image, I even got the GRS (a first for me).

Awards

2010-09-10T11:39:00.003+01:00

There were some truly stunning images on show last night at the awards ceremony. Congratulations to all the winners. Well done on a great evening to the Observatory.

I didn't win anything, maybe next year.

I did, however, write up a tutorial on Lunar imaging for the competition website which is now online at the ROG/Astro Photo website.

The images embedded look a bit compressed, but click on them, and they look as they should do.

Going to the Royal Observatory

2010-09-09T09:06:00.000+01:00

Tonight, I'm off to the awards ceremony for the 2010 Astro Photography of the year competition. I got one image shortlisted this year, an image of the moon.

I'm really pleased to have been shortlisted again, and I'm really looking forward to the evenings ceremonies.

Perseids Watch - Part the second

2010-08-13T00:51:00.000+01:00

Another night, and it started out the same, cloudy all day, still pretty cloudy as the sun was going down, and soon cleared shortly after sundown. Once the sky got completely dark, I setup the meteor lounger, and set down at around 2230 for a viewing session. I left the kit indoors, and just enjoyed the clear skies.

It was another superb sky, the Milky Way was clearly visible across the middle of the sky. It seems that when there has been rain and clouds, and they clear, the sky is left far clearer and cleaner than normal. Within a few minutes, I'd seen 5 Perseids, the 5th being by far and away the best with a long glowing trail left behind as it burnt across the sky. Over the course of the next 1.5 hours, I kept watch, spotting a total of 23 Perseids, 10 satellites, and 6 transient meteors blasting across the sky, although of those 4 looked to be heading towards Perseus instead of from the radiant, quite a surprise.

Again, M31 was visible with averted vision, so it goes to show how good the sky is around here I reckon.

I popped indoors at midnight to warm up, get a cuppa and get a blanket. Whilst my top half wasn't as cold (another layer) my legs were really cold after an hour and a half. The bad news is, when I went back out, I only saw another 3 Perseids, before, I started dozing off... Not really wanting to fall asleep in the garden, in the damp and cold air, I figured it was a much better idea to come in.

So a good haul of 26 Perseids, 10 Satellites and 6 Transients, with a great view of Cygnus, Cassie, Andromeda, Lyra, Aquilla and the glowing band of the Milky Way.

Just the Sun

2010-08-13T00:42:00.002+01:00

A single shot of the Sun, from very early this morning.

NexStar 60, 2x TC, 450d, Baader Solar film, Contrast Booster, and a green filter

[IMG]http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg118/johns_bucketofphotos/astro/solar/IMG_6026.jpg[/IMG]

There was a thin layer of cloud, just enough to make the sun look dirty.

Perseids Watch

2010-08-12T01:10:00.000+01:00

I kept an eye on the clouds, throughout the day, and as the sun was setting, they began to clear. I kept an eye out throughout the evening, and eventually, they finally cleared properly. So I got out a meteor lounger (more commonly known as a sun lounger) and lay back to watch the skies. No kit, just the oldest astro equipment in the book, a pair of the good old eyeballs. I started by just having a look around. I was surprised to find that, even though, the sky from the horizons up to around 20 degrees was pretty rubbish with a sickly glow to it, overhead was surprisingly clear. I was able to see the faint wonderful glow of the Milky Way arching overhead from Cassiopeia in the North, through Cygnus, and down to Vulpecula in the South, lovely. I lay there scanning back and forth. Throughout an hour and a half I saw 9 Meteors, the 7th being the best by far, bright (I'd guestimate Mag 0 probably, not that I really have much of a clue), leaving behind a faintly glowing track across the sky for a few seconds. In that same time I saw 5 satellites.

About half way through, I caught a glimpse of some dull fluffy stuff creeping into my field of vision, oddly, it would not have looked out of place at Halloween as the shapes and holes looked like ghosts.. amazing what the imagination can come up with. I stayed to watch as long as I could, and, much to my amazement, the ghostly clouds, gradually vanished as slowly and gently as they had come, before fully crossing Cygnus. Marvelous.

One interesting thing, and amazing thing, to note, I was able to find and see M31, the Andromeda galaxy, ok only as a faint blob with averted vision, but it was definitely there, and in the right place, so that I wasn't imagining.

There were some very odd noises from the garden behind me, I don't know what passed through, but I didn't care.

In the end, I was forced in by the cold, my lower back aching, and having to get up for work.

I didn't get the rig out, and that's ok. I enjoyed this nights viewing.

Sunday's Sun

2010-08-09T19:46:00.000+01:00

Only a day late... Ho hum...

Another single frame image of the Sun,

NexStar 60, 2x TC (1400mm, f/23) 450d, Baader Solar Film and Contrast Booster, a green filter.

The Sun Again (1092 and 1093)

2010-08-08T11:46:00.000+01:00

I'm quite enjoying this Solar stuff... a shame I've not had the clear skies to try and get up close to a spot... but... I'll take what I can get...

These two are about 12 hours apart, both taken with the NexStar 60 Achro with a 2x TC... (1400mm, f/23)

This only had the Solar filter

This had the Solar filter, a Contrast Booster and a green filter

I'm amazed I've picked up some Faculae around spot 1093... and a couple of smaller spots above 1092.

Sailing the river

2010-08-08T11:38:00.000+01:00

I stepped outside last night to check for low green haze on the Northern horizon (not expecting to see any, way too much light polution). But I looked up whilst out in the direction of Cygnus, and promptly lost myself in the immense arch of a dim yet clear milky way. I was amazed that even not being dark adapted (having not more than a minute before stepped out of the house) how much I could see. After a few minutes I tracked down to the south, following the shining river of stars and could make out the split where the dark bands run through the middle.

WOW!!!!...

I'm sure, but it was in peripheral vision, that I caught a Perseid whilst wandering along the ribbon too.

Whilst I was amazed with the view, I also had the 450d and kit lens at 18mm mounted on my EQ1 and captured some widefield subs of 3 minutes each... f/3.5 @ISO400 (I think I got it wrong in the border)

Some more of the Sun

2010-08-04T19:03:00.000+01:00

I've been ducking the clouds, and trying to shoot some shots of the sun in the gaps... Not an easy task, as finding the sun means you need strong shadows, and the clouds are putting paid to them. Then focusing is really much harder than I was expecting it to be...

Anyway, One from the weekend.. NexStar 60, 2xTC, 450d on a camera tripod with Baader solar film

A few from Yesterday, a bit more atmospheric

C80ED, 2xTC, 450d with Baader Solar Film

And finally one from today.. there was a shot 10 minute gap in the clouds

C80ED, 2xTC, 450d with Baader Solar Film

I'm rather pleased with this second one, it's got a second spot appearing in the upper left and there's details around it.

Some First Solar

2010-08-01T18:24:00.000+01:00

I finally bought myself some Solar film to have a try at some solar imaging. The total swamp of clouds at night, and the bright skies were really getting me down.

I have a filter attachment for the scopes, unfortunately it's just a little too small for the C80ED (to the tune of about 1mm.. how typical is that ? Anyway, I made up too filter cells so far... one for my 55-250 camera lens (using a pair of UV filters and sandwiching the filter itself between them) and one for my little NexStar 60, as that's what the metal filter attachment fits. Here's the images so far...

With the 55-250

A couple with the NexStar 60 and the 450d on the back

A tree blew in the way whilst the shutter was open...

And a cloud boiled into view at this time...

And a few more with the 55-250... very heavily cropped...

This one has two spots... one upper left, and one lower right.

And whilst the spot isn't as sharp in this one, a bird flew between the camera and the sun... what could I do but shoot it...

Shooting the Moon

2010-08-01T18:13:00.000+01:00

I saw the moon on the 21st at the front of the house, amazingly low, and hiding behind the house. I did check to see how high it was going to climb, but sadly it was already at highest, so there was no chance to try any mosaicing on it. So I plonked the C80ED on my camera tripod, put the 450d and 2xTC on the back and grabbed a shot...

And I decided to pull out the colour a bit

Creating a Lunar Mosaic

2010-07-23T23:38:00.000+01:00

I decided it was time, that I document my workflow for creating Lunar mosaics, this works very well for me, and I'm sure there are better ways of producing them, and I'm probably missing some tricks.

Firstly, setup, balance and polar align (although that's not 100% critical, I have aligned by pointing it in about the right place with a compass), and plug everything together. As long as the tracking is pretty good. If the tracking isn't pretty good, I think there'll be too much movement on an avi which will mean the mosaic won't be as good as it can be. Get everything running and tracking.

I'm using eqmod and a gamepad to drive my mount, the joystick makes easy work of moving around the moon, and I have to have a laptop to drive the camera anyway.

Adjust the exposure so you can clearly see the surface details (it doesn't matter if you have hot spots, the exposure will be setup properly later), aim for the terminator, the high contrasty shadows make this much easier. Rotate the camera in the focuser to make your job easier during capture. If the camera orientation follows the line of the terminator, it's much easier to build up the captures than if the camera is at a strange relative angle, and the number of frames you need will be less. Then adjust focus, taking plenty of time to do this, it's probably the most important aspect of setting up. I tend to move back and forward, through focus slowly until I think I have it right. Then, zoom in on the screen. The capture software I'm using has a facility to zoom up to 400%, but I'm sure there must be other methods available if the capture software doesn't have that facility, some form of software screen magnifier maybe, and repeat the process, making sure that at the zoomed level it looks sharp. Avoid over zooming though, as the image will start to pixelate making focusing properly next to impossible.

Now everything is focused, it's time to set the exposure. This is actually a tricky proposition as there are such significant changes in the surface brightness. If the capture software has a histogram, then make use of it as you move across the surface of the moon, you want to set the exposure so you're either, only just clipping the highlights, or preferably not at all, whilst at the same time, capturing details in the darker regions. Take a little time doing this, I normally run across 2 or 3 times to check. Once set, don't adjust it, or your mosaic will look a bit odd.

Get over to the terminator, start at the top or bottom, and start capturing. I normally use 1000 frame captures, and try to balance the gain and shutter speed to maximise the framerate, whilst keeping noise down, I don't think there is any one particular good setting for this, there are too many factors involve. I try to keep over 25fps/

There's a very handy little trick I use to make sure that I don't miss any bits. I discovered this by accident, but hey, that's fine. I was trying to work out how to take just the first frame from my AVI and put it into iMerge. I ended up loading the entire AVI. What iMerge does is just show the first frame. Obviously the image is not going to be looking it's best, seeing will have affected it, and it needs processing, but it gives a way of seeing how much overlap you have, accuracy is not too important in the mosaicing at this stage, but it's easier to see and messes with your eyes less if it's pretty close.

Now, as you capture each frame, you should be able to make a decision about how far to move the mount to capture the next frame, leave between 20 and 30% overlap, and start capturing the next frame. Then drag and drop the first avi into iMerge. Repeat this process until you have the first strip built up. I normally then just move across and start the next strip next to where I was, repeat until you have captured the entire disk. As you are building up a mosaic of the AVI's in iMerge as you work, it's easy to see if you've missed any bits and can go and cover them, capture these as you go, it's probably easier than going back later. As a precaution, if I find I've ended up with insufficient overlap (the panes are just overlapping) I'll grab an extra one to make sure there isn't a slight gap in there once processing is complete, cos by that point it's way too late.

Work quickly yet accurately. If you have any tracking inaccuracies, it can be harder to find your place again, when you have to refer to iMerge and study the image. And the change in the view of the moon will, if you take too long, leave you with some panes that are rotated, not impossible to deal with, but even more of a pain.

If very thin clouds pass through, I'd suggest waiting if possible, as they will affect your exposure settings, and you need to keep everything identical to make it the best you can.

Once you have captured the avi's, and making sure you have good coverage of the entire surface, close iMerge and discard the mosaic you built up. You can't use it anyway, but it makes a really excellent ready reckoner.

I do sometimes take a dark and flat avis to create reference frames for later, I'm not totally convinced this makes any real difference, and if I'm honest, my flats for this stink... and actually totally ruin the image so I've never used one to date. But given how little time it takes...

Now onto the processing.

Open Registax (I'm using 5.1), iMerge, and your output folder (where you will save the stacked images). Open the first avi, using the arrows buttons at the bottom, start looking through the frames until you find one that looks the best, click on multi alignment. In the new box that pops up, click on the estimate alignment tab, set the radio button to method 2, then click the estimate align points (I normally use the default box size of 64, it works for me). The image will probably become covered in a load of boxes, one for each point. If you're tracking is 100% spot on, I understand that it's better to set the matrix method and using the boxes at the bottom of the tab set to 10 and 10, then click estimate, although I have had odd effects show up from using this where empty space is visible or when I've got some drift through the avi. Once you have the alignment points, click the align button. Some time later, depending on how many points and how fast your computer is, the alignment will be complete, and registax will have calculated what it thinks is the best frames based on the percentage for the method used. This always seems to come out at 85% for me. I use the slider to limit to 200 or 250 frames from the avi, then click optimise and stack. I know this doesn't use a reference stack of the best frames, but having tried that and found that it doesn't help me, I've stopped doing it.

Once the optimisation and stacking is complete, Registax will take you to the wavelets screen, this is the sharpening tools, they are very powerful and very easy to over use, so I need to be gentle. I work out a set of wavelets that give you the best result, then save them. At the bottom of the wavelets tab, there's a button labelled save scheme. Click it and save the scheme, this way you don't need to remember the settings you used, as you need to use the same settings for every frame to keep them all consistent, when each avi is at the wavelet stage, having followed the same process with each to this stage, under the wavelets, there is a drop down box, the saved schema from the first pane should show in the drop down list, click it, select the scheme, click do all and proceed as before. If the schema does not show in the drop down, click load, select it, and it will be in the drop down from then on. Click the final tab, perform any cropping needed, I normally have to crop a small amount around the edge to remove a small white border, and save. Save the file to a separate folder from the avi, I just find this easier.

Close Registax, reopen, and repeat with the next file. Whilst this is aligning, load the saved image into iMerge. Nothing much to do with the first one, then the work begins with each after that. Load each saved avi, I just drag it in from explorer, and do a rough alignment, you should be able to get pretty close. Then making sure the zoom is at 1:1 (default mode is adjusted with the mouse scroll wheel), click onto a pane already in the image (don't move the mouse as it'll move the pane), then click back onto the new pane. You should get an idea of what direction and how far to move the new piece to line it up. Adjust and repeat. Do this until the image is lined up as near to perfectly as you can. Then check with any other panes that this new piece might be adjoining, you should find, if they've all been done carefully then they'll be spot on, if not adjust until they are. Continue working through until you have completed building the mosaic. Save the image from iMerge. I save the mosaic project as I'm going along, but one gotcha I've found with iMerge... if I use the file save option, the project is not saved. Only use the save as option and select to overwrite the orhttp://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=8449184461236146969iginal. Although if you just work straight through all the avi's this shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Once the mosaic is saved, I load it into an editing program and adjust to suit. I normally apply a small contrast boost with curves and one or two, very gentle, high pass filter sharpens.

There are quite a few example posts through here showing the end result..

and

Contain a few

Noctilucent Clouds - Friday 9th July

2010-07-11T16:55:00.001+01:00

I was sat in the garden on Friday evening, soon after the sun had set, I glanced up and could see some faint hints of slightly glowing ripples in the air. I grabbed some binoculars for a quick check, and yes, NLC's. The fact I could see them from the back garden, without having to squeeze right into the corner to get around the tree meant this was going to be a wide display. I dashed in, grabbed the camera and tripod and headed over the road to see what I could see and shoot.

Anyway, it turned out to be a really good and wide display...

I shot a number of Panoramas

6 pane pano, shot in portrait

4 pane pano, shot in portrait

3 pane pano, shot in landscape

8 pane pano, shot in Portrait

I also used the 55-250 to zoom in and capture some detail

The Moon from the 22nd June

2010-07-11T16:48:00.000+01:00

A bit late, but I'm just not getting time to get updated at the moment. Ho Hum. Anyway, on the 22nd June, I had a chance to have a go at another mosaic.

I got the kit out, and with a polar align done by pointing a compass and roughly making the polar axis lie in the track of the needle (a deeply accurate method I don't think). I connected all together and checked the views. The moon was very low (about 14 degrees) and that introduced it's own set of problems (the moon looked like it was under fast flowing running water). Still... having got setup I thought I might as well capture some frames with the C80ED, QHY5v, and I used my 2x barlow to get in a bit closer.

I set out to capture a mosaic using the 12-10 bit companding mode... this produces more detail but at the expense of a much reduce dynamic range... I'm still undecided on the merits of this mode... as the normal 8bit mode I can drive at higher frame rates.

Anyway... this is a 25 pane mosaic, each pane is 250 of 1000 frames, stacked and wavelets in Registax 5.1, merged in ICE. There were some exposure variations that cause some serious problems using the usual manual merge process with iMerge thanks to the changing sky conditions as the sun set.

Click for full size.

I then put some tubes between the barlow and camera, refocused and had a play at higher magnification. A complete nuts idea given the altitude of the moon, but hey... I was there, the kit was there, the moon was there... so why not...

Anyway.. Each of these is 250 of 1000 frames. I used the ROI settings of the capture software to get a higher frame rate also.

Herschel

Sinus Iridium (Bay of Rainbows)

Clavius

Gassendi

And finally, one a little more recent, a shot of the moon, rising out of the trees

A lunar update

2010-06-22T15:15:00.001+01:00

I'm being a bit poor at getting this updated at the moment... I've been having some more fun with the moon recently..

I'll start with a couple of cloudy moon shots

On to the more details stuff... I've found a mode on the QHY5v that allows for a better bit depth, at the cost of some dynamic range.. to prevent overexposure this means ending up with a bit darker image...

Here's a couple of comparison shots..

I did another 25 Pane mosaic (I can't remember when... it was a little after mid may I think)... Captured using the Celestron 80ED, QHY5v guidecam, a red filter and a UV/IR filter. 250 frames of avi from 1000 per pane, processed in Registax 5, and merged in iMerge.

click for full size

Then last week, I had a couple more goes, although this time at a much earlier day in the cycle.

I had some issues actually being able to point the scope in the right direction, thanks to trees etc, and with the moon being very low, the seeing was pretty poor, nonetheless... This is a 9 pane mosaic, the image details are as before, shot on the 15th.

Then on the 16th I had another bash, this was a little earlier in the evening, and I had some helpers in the form of my sons. The eldest focused for me, and they both helped in the capture.

This is a 22 pane mosaic, details as before, but shot in the 12-10 bit mode of the camera, and using a 30mm extension tube between the camera and barlow for increased image scale. Processing this was a little trickier, as starting that much earlier in the evening, the lighting levels changed as the evening wore on... meaning that the later panes appeared darker.

And just to finish off, I grabbed a few sections. Each is 250 frames from 1000 frames.

Petavius to Funerius

Pitiscus

and Endymion

I've really been enjoying these mosaics, and just seeing precisely what I can managed to pull out of my little 80mm refractor.

Deep Sky - An Update

2010-04-26T12:16:00.000+01:00

This is a bit shorter than the Moon update...

All these were shot with the Canon 450d attached to the C80ED, mounted on a guided HEQ5, guided with a QHY5v attached to the Konus Vista 80s with PHD.

After M3, I decided to attempt a project on M101, my aim to get over 12 hours of capture. I decided to use ISO400 as a balance between the exposure time, doubling that used for my Orion widefield, and doubling the ISO also, to make up for the change in focal ratio. This took place over three nights, the guiding worked flawlessly...

Night 1 31 subs of 10 minutes

Night 2 added - 55 subs of 10 minutes

and the final result, Night 3 added - 76 subs of 10 minutes

I had intended to go for even more time at the outset, but I think the problem I'm facing is not having enough focal length to get the image large enough on the sensor to pull the details out. Not quite sure what I'm going to do about that at the moment... I think I'll probably get my webcam modded for long exposure.

I thought after this, I'd got for some widefield and easier targets, which my current setup is far better suited to...

Mars and The Beehive (M44)

M67

I also decided to try an experiment on M3, this time adding in my Kenko 2x teleconverter

That brings the Deepsky up to date.

Lunar - An Update

2010-04-26T09:58:00.000+01:00

I've done so much Lunar stuff over the past few weeks, I can't really remember much of the details, but I'll do my best... All the images, except the one with the plane in were shot with the Celestron 80ED

A single shot at 600mm as I was setting up for some deep sky

The Moon and Mercury in Volcanic Sunset

The Moon, Mercury and Venus in the Volcanic Sunset

The Moon and Venus

A few shots of the first few days of this cycle, all shot with the 450d, Kenko 2xTC and the C80ED on my redsnapper tripod

Day 2

Day 3
In blue

And a bit later

Day 4

Then I thought I'd got the Lunar X, but it's not quite in the right place... nearly there..

I also did a mosaic of the disk, using a pair of x2 barlows (for x4), 69 panes, 350 frames per pane at about 20 fps, stacked and wavelets in Registax and tweaked.

I had some and games with my 5x Barlow as well...

A 7 pane mosaic

And some Craters
Walter

Stofler

Archimedes

Vallis Alpes

Triesnecker

and a 2 pane mosaic of the Theopholis region

Another single shot in a clear blue sky, from the next day

Another mosaic, just a single x2 barlow for this one, so less panes 19 I think, 300 of 350 frames at 30 fps, stacked and wavelets in Registax and tweaked

And a few closeups with the x5 Barlow

Clavius in shadow

And the Straight Wall

A mosaic of the Mountains

Then another day... Another blue moon at 1200mm

The Moon and a plane

A final Mosaic with a 2x barlow, this one is 22 panes, 250 of 1000 frames at about 25 fps, stacked and wavelets in Registax and tweaked

And a couple more closeups with the 5x, 300 of 1500 frames
Copernicus

Clavius

Shared observing and M3

2010-03-13T21:16:00.001Z

I've not had time to write this up till now. But there we go...

Last weekend, we had four clear nights in a row, but my back has not been good and I didn't get the rig out for the first couple of nights as it's quite heavy. On the Saturday, a friend and his daughter joined me in the garden for a short visual session. I set up the C80ED on my redsnapper and got out the eyepieces... it's been a while since I did that. We also took out the 10x50 and 15x70's.

We just had a short tour of the more visually interesting targets. I used the 24mm Hyperion on the C80ED and kept it at that. We started with M45, the sisters looking as stunning as ever in the dark sky. I pointed out the obvious difference, and lets be honest M45 is a very obvious choice for this, between looking without optics and what even something like a pair of 10x50 binoculars reveals of the sheer number of stars up there.

From there onto M42 (before it got to low, and the wings of the nebula were clear in the eyepice. M44, another stunning display of stars, we also spent some time looking at the Mirfak association and the double cluster.

I should have taken notes, but I didn't and now of course I can't remember... There were more targets we looked at.

Sunday was also clear, and after watching the early evening ISS pass and failing to capture it spearing Orion, I should have known then what the evening foretold, but having been over a month since actually getting any imaging done, I decided I'd go for it and suffer the consequences.

I carted the rig out, and setup. Polar alignment was as simple as normal, as was balancing, I still can't believe I was put off this at one point, and after debating what target to go for... should I choose M101 or M3... I started the goto alignment. All was going well, until after slewing to the third star, and getting ready for the final tweaks, I caught the power cable to the mount and knocked it out. Ok, thought I, start again. So off I went... now though the slews were going in completely the wrong direction. I don't know why. After trying to sort that out, I gave up, powered down, reset everything and tried again.

This time, the goto alignment went as I expected, and I was locked onto my target of choice within 5 minutes. Then my next problem... I couldn't find a guide star. I couldn't work it out, this was just odd... I slewed back to a bright star and had a short hunt around... nothing, then it occurred to me, that the focus might be out. So I started tweaking, and finally up came a star on screen. I must have knocked the focuser at some point. I slewed back to my target, fired a test frame (30s at ISO1600) and my target was pretty much in the middle of the frame. I kicked off PHD, chose a star and started calibration. This went well and once calibrated, went to setup my timer remote. That's when the next problem hit.

As I was programming the timer, it started blinking and that was that. Now what I thought. I took the timer remote in, removed the battery, cleaned it, reseated it, put it back. Nothing... Tried again, it came back to life. Phew... I plugged it back into the camera, went to check it, press the light button and again, it started blinking... I repeated the process. After 3 minutes of fiddling, I still wasn't getting anywhere. I checked for spare batteries, none of course. I was thinking I was going to end up having to keep track of the exposures on a timer. But at that moment, it sprang back to life. I was able to setup the remote for my exposure sequence, plugged it in, pressed go, and went off to get on with the things I needed to do.

Whereas, I'm normally up and running in under 30 minutes, it had taken me 90 minutes to get going. Ho hum... talk about a way of cutting the session short.

Anyway, I stopped capturing data a couple of hours later, and after the initial problems, everything had worked exactly as I'd expected it to.

After stacking and processing, here's the result..

A Widefield M3

Canon 450d on C80ED. 59 x 2 minutes @ISO200, with 15 darks and 22 flats.
QHY5v on Konus Vista 80s guiding with PHD
Mounted on an HEQ5

But there was something odd with this, I've had it before with M3, a green/cyan tint to the cluster. I don't know why. Anyway, with some additional tweaks in processing, I got

Which I'm much happier with. I've come to the conclusion, that ISO200 works great for subs of at least 5 minutes, but below that, such as with these 2 minute subs, I probably ought to be using ISO400. There was a little more noise than I was expecting showing up. Still it's all good information.

Mars and the Moon, Mars and some Moon pieces.

2010-01-30T22:43:00.000Z

A wonderful sight early on last night, with the full Moon and Mars lying near each other, low in the sky, against the deep blue of dusk. I got a couple of shots.

A shot of the full moon rising

And a little later the Moon and Mars

Very tricky exposure conditions, I really like the sky colour that's come through.

I also had a go at Mars last night. I've gotta say it's far harder than anything else I've tried so far. I guess cos Mars is so small..

Anyway, 1000 of 2000 frames, stacked in registax. I don't know why I've got an odd halo around it, I'm suspecting something to do with the little Mak, but I'm very pleased with this for my first attempt, it's got surface detail

I also had a quick play about on a couple of lunar features, again not easy with the full moon, with the 5x barlow (even harder)... each of these is about 500 of a 1000 frames.

Aristarchus

Reiner Gamma

And I think this one is Pythagoras

I have no intention of ever trying to do a full mosaic at this image scale, apart from being there all night, I do not have enough hard disk space to store all the AVI's...
Anyway, I used the Skymax 102 and played with different combinations of barlows... The best appears to have been a pair of 2x stacked. Focussing was really very hard.

Playing on the moon

2010-01-28T14:58:00.000Z

Twas a clear night, but with a high mist. The mist did interfere a little, but it sure helped with the seeing... I got out for some imaging... But first, a single shot with the 450d 2xTC, the C80ED on a camera tripod.

A little later, all done, I got the kit out... The Skymax 102 with the QHY5v on the HEQ5. Using a gamepad via EQMOD to control it all (that makes life so much easier). I setup with the 2x barlow to capture a mosaic of the disk. Here's a couple of frames from the total..

Clavius

Copernicus

The full mosaic. 93 panes of 350 frames in each AVI, processed in Registax 5, merged in Imerge and tweaked in GIMP.

Click for the full size version.

I then setup with the 5x barlow for a little play, the intent being to try and image Mars. It's really hard to use, and focusing is a total mare... anyway...

Gassendi

My attempts at Mars then failed completely... I couldn't find Mars, I spend some 20 minutes trying too. It wasn't that I couldn't see Mars, I could, but the very narrow FOV was just too small, then I ran out of power, and I and all my equipment needed to defrost. So it wasn't to be. Hopefully there'll be another clear night over the next week and I can have another bash at Mars.

Competitions

2010-01-25T14:12:00.000Z

I entered some images in Galilean nights competition last year and one of them was shortlisted....

I've also pushed some images into the pool for this years Astro Photo Competition(although I've not entered yet, I'll hold off on that in case we might have a clear night over the coming months) and 2 of those have been put up on the front page as favourites

and

A clear night

2010-01-22T11:58:00.001Z

On Sunday I had a clear night that didn't have a full or nearly full moon riding high in the sky, rather a new crescent moon, and I got a couple of shots of it.

A crescent showing Earthshine, I managed to get a star in this one too, although it's quite hard to see (HP 106739, Mag 7). This was shot at 600mm with the 450d through the C80ED on my redsnapper. To be honest, I'm rather amazed the moon didn't turn into a smear, as it was quite a long exposure, but ...

And then, just the crescent at 1200mm with the 2xTC fitted too

Amazingly, the sky stayed clear of clouds, and some time later I was able to get the entire rig out. I decided to try something a little different and piggy backed the camera to the C80ED, using the Canon 50mm lens. Balance was a little tricky and I had to add the second counterweight, but once done, it worked. I'd previously made a small dew shield for the lens, but found, when firing some test shots that it was too long, so carried out some surgery on it with a pair of scissors so all's good there. Got everything lined up, set the guiding going, and the camera capturing. After 15 minutes, some odd things were going on... the mount was tracking, but the camera was stuck on a not quite blank screen... ah, I know what that is... that's the battery.. what flat already... quick change... then went to check on the guiding status. The laptop had gone into a suspend state. So I bought it back out of suspend mode, and used mains power instead. That solved that one. But PHD and EQMOD were both messed up. So start all over again.

This time all worked perfectly. And I went about capturing a sequence of 5 minute exposures.

I selected ISO200 to test out exactly what effect this would have, expecting to pick up less data. I was amazed to discover that this wasn't the case. And in fact, it's probably my best result to date.

Anyway... the image..
ISO200, 33 x 5 Minutes @ 50mm, f/3.5
Mounted on the HEQ5, guided with PHD and the QHY5v on the Vista 80s
The camera has not been modified for Ha sensitivity

Click for bigger.

I enjoyed that, and I want to have a go at Auriga next.

Reworking M45

2010-01-14T13:27:00.000Z

I've never been happy with the M45 image I got last year.... It always struck me that something was missing... I had another bash last night...

I discarded the first night subs (about 12) as the alignment was totally different and was causing some difficult to process lines. Stacked, and gently gently tweaked, pushed and pulled, and after some time... ended up with ...

I'm much happier with this, although I think I might have overcooked things a little...

Click for a bigger version

More Moons

2010-01-04T10:07:00.000Z

A few moon shots from over Christmas and New Year.

From the 27th, C80ED, 2xTC and 450d on the red snapper.

and pulling out the colour

Then on New Years day, it was clear, but very very cold, I setup for a mosaic. I decided to try a full disk mosaic using the Skymax and x2 Barlow. I set for 750 frames per avi, and started capturing. After capturing the first 45 panes I realised that I was going to run out of disk space before completing (50Gb wasn't enough)... so swapped to 500 frames per avi, and started trying to process the 750 frame avi's to clear some space.

There were a few occasions throughout the evening I thought I was going to run out of sky as clouds scudded through my FOV. And I used that time to process more of the data. Anyway, I continued, only to find, later on, that I'd shot the same strip of the moon twice. I'd not realised, and it didn't show in any of the avi's but there was a little drift in the mount, that could only be seen if left alone for 10 minutes. Yet more time and space wasted (I didn't realise till I was stacking all the frames).

Then, to finish things off, prior to me completing, clouds and snow came in. There wasn't much snow, and I don't think it fell for long, but I wasn't going to risk it. So I packed up.

After finishing the processing of 102 frames, and mosaicing, I got this

I'm pleased with how most of it turned out, just a shame about the small hole, and the remainder of the surface...

I then thought I'd put the 102 frames through MS ICE to see what would happen, and how it would come out. Here's the result, interestingly, ICE has filled in my little hole.

Click either of the above for the full size versions.

I also did a little extra processing on a small mosaic of Copernicus

and a couple of other craters and one Mare...

Mare Crisium

Langrenus

Cleomedes

Petavius

I'm sure they would have been better, had I shot longer AVI's, but I'm happy with the results. I didn't get a chance to image Mars as I'd wanted, although I'm not sure what results I would have achieved, but that's for another day.

Some Younger Moon shots

2009-12-21T15:36:00.000Z

A few shots of the younger moon taken in the cold and snow over the weekend

A bit earlier on, the sky had a pink tint as the sun was setting

and with a passer by

Then a couple from a little later on

I've not been brave enough to get the gear out, in spite of having some clear skies, as the snow and ice makes the garden hazardous without carrying expensive equipment...

The Moon, Geminds and an Older Moon

2009-12-14T13:58:00.001Z

I managed to get a shot of the moon against the clear blue sky the other morning... Lovely sight it was too

Last night, apart from some clouds whipping through, I went looking for Geminids. In between the clouds. It was a truly breathtaking sky last night.

I sat out with my 10x50's and spent a little while hunting around with the bins, I'm finding it so much easier this year to find my targets. I can't remember the order, but ...

m31, m35, m36, m37, m38, m41, m42, m44, m45 to start with...

Collander 70, the Mirfak association, the cluster around Bellatrix (I'm sure it's another Collander though I can't recall). I think I also found the cluster at the heart of the rosette.

After being sat there for a while, I was amazed to find, that I could, with averted vision, see the little fish, and the smiley face in Auriga, seven of the sisters, and I'm sure I could also make out some of the Mirfak association without the bins. m45 appeared to glow in the sky.

Oh that the cloud had stayed away, and not kept whizzing through, and I almost could have preferred to have got out the rig, given my success (or lack thereof) with catching any Geminids.

But, I enjoyed it, the views were just stunning.

I managed to get 2 Geminids on chip, I'm going to recheck the others and see if I've caught any, but I doubt it.

and

as I had 90 shots... I made a star trails with them. The clouds has made an interesting effect

And then this morning, I spotted a 26 day old moon, hanging low in the wonderful colours of predawn

Moon in the trees..

2009-12-08T11:31:00.000Z

Firstly an apology. I messed up with the comments someone was trying to post yesterday, and they got deleted.... Sorry about that. Whoever that was, please don't take it the wrong way... it was my user error nothing more. I've done some digging, and managed to find the setting that caused me to mess this up I think...

I managed to get a couple of shots of the moon as it rose through the trees last night..

Collimation and a hoop

2009-12-07T07:24:00.002Z

Had another clear night. I got setup, and decided to have a go at collimating the Skymax. What a pain that proved to be. Firstly, the little Mak has 6 collimation screws, 3 x 3mm and 3 x 2mm using Allen keys to adjust. That makes it tricky to start with, in the day, when you can see what you are doing. At night, that's just painful. Still with the near full moon up, it was quite bright. I started on the moon, to focus and ensure the finder was aligned, as using the QHY5v and a 2x barlow made the FOV of the Skymax particularly small (so small, that an out of focus Betelgeuse filled the screen), then slewed across to Betelgeuse, conveniently close by. I've gotta say, that using EQMOD and a game controller made this really easy. Anyway, I took the Mak in and out of focus and confirmed my suspicions, the rings were not concentric. So, I started in on collimation. Then realised I'd forgotten the instructions, so dug them out and started over. After the first set of adjustments, Betelguese was nowhere to be seen on screen, and no amount of wandering about could find it. I went back to the moon, and realigned the finder, and back to the star. And repeat, and repeat, and repeat. After about 1.5 hours of this, most of the time spent trying to find the star again, the rings were as concentric as I could make them by eye on the laptop screen, and I could no longer feel the Allen keys as I was using them. Needless to say, this is not a good idea and I kept dropping them. Oh, I should point out, the lack of sensation was down to the cold.

At this point, I decided I'd have a go at creating a mosaic of the terminator with the 2x barlow. So off I set. Some time later, and I'd captured 28 panes of the terminator, seems rather a lot, but hey, the shivers were getting silly, it was a bit cold and all the layers I'd stacked on just weren't keep the cold out anymore. So I cleared up.

I was amazed at the difference in the resulting images on each pane..

Here's an example, compare this to Bailly from the previous session...

I've got some odd lines in the image, I'm not sure why, but it might be a setting or interference from a power lead, or a number of things, and that'll be something for another night to work out. Anyway... after processing each pane and mosaicing it, I got a far larger image than I'd anticipated.

Click for full size.

I'm very happy with the result, and would like to try a full mosaic using the barlow, but that's for another time and plenty of it. I'm going to need to find some hard disk space too.

The following morning, with the moon low in the sky and the sun not yet risen, I spotted the moon framed in the trees

Mosaicing the moon

2009-12-03T08:21:00.003Z

Having proved the camera works well on the moon, finally a clear night (and I mean properly clear), the first in 6 weeks, and I got the little Mak out for an attempt on a full lunar mosaic. Being full moon of course meant lots of segments. Anyway... A quick PA, balance, find the moon, focus and test and I was off. I drove the mount with EQMOD and used the game controller to move around the moon. I used VirtualDUB to check each AVI for alignment and to ensure I didn't miss any bits, I left plenty of overlap. I captured 34 sections. I probably didn't need that many, I actually only used 33 in the final mosaic. After stacking each 500 frame avi in Registax, I put the output into imerge and aligned as I went along. I also captured a few images with the Ultima x2 barlow, for a short string along the terminator and a single image of Bailly. I did try stacking the 2 x2 barlows, and using the x5 barlow. The seeing was not up to this, there were times, I wasn't even sure the seeing was up to imaging without a barlow but it worked out ok.

Anyway, here's the results.

Bailly

The edge, this is a 5 pane mosaic

And the full disk mosaic, 33 pane mosaic.

Click for bigger. I enjoyed and needed that, although it was very cold.

Testing...

2009-11-27T13:03:00.003Z

Been testing out a change in guide camera...

I only got 40 minutes in total, but it's good to know it's working ;)...

Anyway... I installed all the drivers and software during the day, and it was worth it, it was a bit of a faff getting the correct software installed to get the camera working as both a planetary/lunar camera and a guide camera...

First impressions...

1) It's a lot lighter than a DSI, when I was balancing, I was able to balance the kit out with only a 5Kg counter weight, instead of the 10Kg I had been using... Phew... that feels so much better carting it all in and out now...

2) I tested out on M45, a good bright target to make focussing etc easier. I have to say, that I was getting stars showing on PHD with only a 0.2 second loop, so it certainly seems to be a sensitive little beastie for a CMOS chip... Oh, I don't mean the bright sisters.. one or two of the fainter ones were in view also.

I had no problems with the guiding, all worked well. Just a shame that only 20 minutes after guiding locked on, the clouds had moved in and spoilt the night.

I got a short while also testing on the moon. I used the Skymax on the SLT. Hardly an ideal setup, as the tracking isn't spot on, and it wobbles far to easily.. but it's light to carry and very quick to setup. The tracking would have been better if I'd levelled it, but I forgot... Anyway... Some playing later... I've gotta say the frame rate is much better than the SPC900...

A couple at full frame, about 38fps

One in planet mode (smaller frame) 53fps

And then just to see what would happen, sub frame, smaller still... this hit 83 fps...

I'm not sure I did a good job on either focusing the scope, or processing the images... just a quick bash through regi5 using frame 1 and pretty much defaults, except for multipoint align.

I have to say I think it does a very good job as both a Guider and as a Lunar Camera. I'd expect it to do a similar job on planets, but there wasn't one to look at..

I did try using barlows (x5, 2 x2 and x2) and the camera is more than sensitive enough for it, but on the SLT I couldn't focus the Skymax.

I did setup to try and do a surface mosaic of the moon... I put the Skymax out to cool. Some time later, the HEQ5, polar aligned and setup, mounted the Skymax, and was just about to go get the rest of the bits and pieces... when the clouds rolled in, so I packed it all away again, carted everything in, just in time to miss the rain that followed shortly after.

What did you do with the sky ?

2009-11-16T15:08:00.002Z

Where have all the stars gone ? This is really beginning to wind me up now... three weeks of prime long nights and hardly any opportunity to do anything. I've taken my Mak out 3 times now for an attempt to collimate. The first occasion, I left it out to call, when I went back out, it was dripping wet (only took 30 minutes too) and Polaris has gone... The second occasion was much the same, but without the dripping. The third occasion, I managed to get to the point of confirming that the collimation is out a little before the clouds blotted out the sky... I want to finish my M45 image ... And have a go at a few other targets...

I did see most of last nights ISS pass as it whooshed between the cloud banks, the glow of diffusing light from the mist help make up for it, and it was a bright pass too.

Surely this can't go on for much longer... It didn't feel so bad in the summer, as at least it was warm...

A couple of the moon

2009-11-09T17:10:00.002Z

This weather is getting to me... The clear gaps are not lasting for more than a short while, often followed by bursts of rain, and more clear spells. I'm not going to risk my kit for a short period of clear in the potential for rain. I have been able to get a couple of moon shots though...

One from Friday night

And one from about 10 hours later. It's amazing how in such a short period of time, the view and orientation change so much.

And then last night, I put my little Mak out to check it's collimation on Polaris, cos it looked clear... 30 minutes later, I went back out, clouds had covered Polaris, and my Mak was covered in a film of moisture... never mind...

However, on checking the doors were all locked, I spotted the moon was up, looking out, and there was Mars nearby. What a lovely sight. I got a shot of it, real tough one thanks to the dynamic range...

but easily solved, but taking two shots, one for the moon, one for Mars, layering them, and erasing the moon layer where Mars is to allow the bright Mars to shine through. You know what the biggest shame was... the Beehive was sat between them, and it would have been lovely to have got all that buzzing clusteryness in the same frame, but there was no way I was going to achieve that little task...

Misty full moon

2009-11-03T11:44:00.002Z

The skies have been heavy mist, cloud and rain... but it lifted a little for halloween, and created a very atmospheric night... the high mist and light from the moon, blotted out virtually all the stars, but I was able to get a shot of the moon. C80ED, 2xTC, 450d on a camera tripod

And lift out the colour

I'm sure I also saw a Lunar Halo. The position would be about right... I tried to capture it on camera, but it just doesn't seem to show in the images...

Some more Moon, some with a difference

2009-10-30T09:12:00.002Z

Moon and a rose

A Misty moon

And the moon from last night, 450d, 2xtc, C80ED on a camera tripod

And lifting the colour

More Cloudy Moon, Jupiter and greenery

2009-10-28T10:44:00.003Z

A couple more from last night

I've entered these two, and the previous one like this into the Galilean nights comp. Along with a coloured moon, a daylight moon and my M45 image.

Some Moon and updates

2009-10-27T15:40:00.004Z

Firstly, a tweak on M31... using highlights/shadows... and a couple of other minor adjustments

I managed to get a shot of the moon early on sunday, using the 450d, 2xTC, C80Ed on a camera tripod.

and lifted out the colour

I managed to get setup on sunday night... the sky looked clear. PA'ed aligned, got the camera rotation sorted, started guiding and set the camera running. Checking after 10 minutes, and a big wadge of cloud was moving across, not interfering at that point, but I knew a third sub was out of the question. I stopped after 2 and waited, watching, to see if the clouds would clear.. well after 30 minutes no change, I cleared up. Of course an hour later and clear again... typical...

Anyway, 2 more subs added to my M45 data

I think, to get anymore out of that, I'd need to get double the subs... to be honest, I'm not sure I'm going to this year... it might be time to go after another target.. M33 seems a good bet...

Then last night, before the clouds set in, I saw the moon and jupiter and got this shot

Yes, the moon is a little blown, but it's got the trees in shot nicely and Jupiter is clear... The clouds set in with a vengeance soon after that.

M31 - 7.5 Hours

2009-10-18T23:13:00.002+01:00

Whilst the data was being captured for my M31 image. I spotted Orion and grabbed the 15x70's for a quick look. M42 and M43 were clear, and I could see the wings of M42 stretching off to either side, I even spotted where the running man is (even if I couldn't see the Neb itself)... and had a quick wander around the area.

I also saw my fourth (or should that be fifth, if you include the Earth) planet of the night... Mars was up (below Gemini)...

Anyway onto the image... I lost about an hours worth of capture time when my secondary camera battery ran out, and I hadn't realised... ho hum. After stacking... it took a fair while... with 76 lights and 33 flats, I didn't take darks, or add bias frames...

And processing and some cosmetic tweaking in PS I ended up with

I'm really happy with that result... although I'm sure another 2 or 3 hours of capture time would finish it off nicely.

I found another planet ...

2009-10-18T00:50:00.002+01:00

At least I think I did... but I'm getting ahead of myself..

I setup the rig, and set that going... more M31 data... then, after a quick check on Stellarium, grabbed the 15x70's on my tripod and went a hunting..

I started with Jupiter, then on to Neptune... Not unsurprisingly in exactly the same place (or at least that I could tell at this low power :D). Then using Starwalk on my ipod... red screened and auto lock turned off... I went a-hunting along the plane of the eliptic.

Thankfully, using Starwalk, I found some very nice little pointers... a triangle of stars pointing straight at it, and a few forming lines either side... and after looking, and checking, confirm, and look and check... I'm sure I found it... looking just like a star... but if I'm correct... my 8th planet... Uranus..

Yay!!!

During one of the look away, check and look back, I caught a glimpse of something bright, fast and fiery shoot overhead North to South.

I then went and had a look at tonights imaging target, I'm sure I could just about make out M31 unaided tonightm but getting the bins on it, and the shape was clear... the bright core elongating out into an oval.

I spent some 10 minutes, hunting from there for M33, but no luck again tonight... a tough needle to find in that haystack... and starwalk really wasn't of any real use... I'm sure I was pointing the bins to the right patch of sky... ah well...

I spotted Auriga over the neighbours house and went looking for clusters... I firstly found Mr Smiley and the little fish nearby, then studied where his right ear would be, and yep... there's the first one... M38... A little way lower than this and I found M37.

By this point, thanks to spending so long craning my neck to try and find M33, and the cold seeping in through me fleece, I went in for a cuppa and to warm up.

Hmmm... I enjoyed that session too... Even better knowing that I'm imaging whilst observing too..

M45Reprocess

2009-10-16T23:09:00.002+01:00

I had a bash at reprocessing my M45 data during the clouds... been plenty of those this week...

It's getting there, but there's still quite a lot of noise in the image. I really need more subs to add in, and I think this is as far as I can take my existing data. Hopefully soon... I really want at least another 4 hours to add to this...

20 minutes between the clouds.

2009-10-16T23:07:00.002+01:00

At 9 it was cloudy...
At 10 it was clear... but a quick check around showed clouds on west and northern horizons, at least what I can see of them. I wanted to get the rig out for some more time on M31 and M45 but with those clouds... no point... So I set the 15x70's on the tripod and stepped out for a whirlwind style wander around the sky...

First off Jupiter.. Riding high, with a trail of three moons down to the left, although, checking the charts... it was actually all 4 but the 15x70's couldn't seperate 2 of them.. Io in close, Europa and Ganymede, appearing to be one and Callisto way out... A very pretty, the king with his train of servants...

Anyway, using Stellarium, I went looking for Neptune... I found the 3 stars in a line, a quick double cross check (that's looking at 2 sources, rather than a double cross...) and there it was... Netpune... yay... Another planet on the list... Only one left to find.. I had a look around in Capricorn for the other M's but I couldn't find them.

So instead, I turned around and went to remind myself what some of the other sights looked like, that I haven't looked at in a long time... First up... gotta be M31... very clear, a bright core and a faint wisp/hint of something around the core... although my mind might be filling in the blanks for me... I had a good look for M33 too, but again, couldn't find it. Perhaps I should've referred to a book, but as I didn't have one with me ...

I thought to myself, that one of my favourite, yet really odd sights would be very clear now. And it was... Kembles cascade, a line of about 20 stars leading into an open cluster, NGC 1502. Lovely... (it's easy to find... follow the top of Cassie sort of straight down, alongside Perseus, about double the distance of the width of the top of the W).

Then onto the Double... A wonderful sight, but Bins really do bring this out nicely... I swear I could see some reds in the stars... I don't think that's due to odd reflections from my red head torch either... it was only 3 or 4 stars showing it... From there down to Mirfak and the Association... I previously would centre on Mirfak, but I discovered tonight how much I'd been missing... By putting Mirfak to the upper edge of the FOV, I found so many more stars than before... WOW!!!..

From there I hopped across to M34... another one I found easily... nowhere near as impressive as the double, but still a lovely little cluster. Back down into Auriga... I didn't fine the M's but the conditions were deteriorating, but I did find Mr Smiley and the Little Fish. Back up to Cassie (just sort of meandering) there are so many stars, but I found M103... Then NGC457, The Owl cluster. I swung around a little, hopped up from the pan of the dipper, and found M81 and M82... A pair of very faint smudges in the bins... Glad I found them though, I normally have a lot of difficulty doing that.

Then I turned around, found the coathanger... had a quick nose at Lyra... although 15x70's don't reveal very much and drifted up the Milky Way...

That's when the clouds really started making their presence felt (I'd worked around them till then) and gave up and came in...

Only 20 minutes, but well spent and I enjoyed it. I hope to have many evenings with the 15x70s gadding about, whilst the rig is running.

Another clear night

2009-10-15T12:16:00.002+01:00

Although I was unable to start early, I was able to get straight onto more data on m45. But only a couple of hours, then the power ran out...

Anyway, stack and process, I ended up with

The colour is better, but I've over done something in the processing... not sure what exactly, and I'm not sure I'm going to go back and reprocess at this point, as I want to get even more time on it, I know there is faint stuff lurking in there, just out of reach... I may have to push the exposures even longer.

I had another bash at the M31 data, and I think I've processed this better... although again, more data won't hurt

More M31 and some M45

2009-10-12T09:44:00.003+01:00

Another clear night last night.. this can't be right, that's two in under a week. Not that I'm complaining of course. Anyway, I carted the gear out for another session, aiming to capture more data on M31. A quick level and PA, hook up the wires, 3 star align, goto M31 and I'm off. I managed to capture 20 more 6 minute subs by which point the camera was looking worryingly close to the leg. I did consider flipping over and carrying on, but M45 was clear, high in the sky, so I thought I'd have a go at that too.

Anyway... After a stack (adding in the second nights data) to give 37x6 mins

I'm not sure I quite nailed the processing, it needs a little more work, although more data won't hurt...

Here's the stack of M45, only got 11 frames

This needs more data, but it's clear that 6 minutes is a good frame length for the whispy stuff, but I might go longer..

A general update

2009-10-11T10:29:00.004+01:00

It's been a while since I've had an opportunity to post, so this is going to cover a few items.

So firstly, There was a close conjunction of Jupiter and the moon, so I grabbed a shot at 250mm

And just to check I could still do it, a handheld 250mm shot of the moon

Over the course of the last couple of weeks, I've been able to grab a few shots of the moon with the 450d, a 2xTC, the C80ED and my camera tripod

and in colour, testing out some of the features of Aperture, I think this is possibly my best to date

One on a misty night, the mist processes out nicely with a wallop of contrast

but here's the unprocessed version

And then, a lovely moon against the daytime sky

I was also able to get out for a little webcam action in between the clouds one night. Thankfully, the Skymax SLT combo, is small, lightweight and very easy to setup, as this means it can be done very quickly without any need to see Polaris.

These are not great, but if I remember correctly, the clouds were being a pain. I'm also at about the limit of my little webcam, I'm not sure what to do really, I'd like an imaging source cam, but that's not going to happen at the moment..

I don't know why, but I really rather like this area of the moon.

I also had a short visual session with my youngest one evening, before the clouds moved in. Jupiter was low in the sky, but we'd been talking about it, why the moon and Jupiter were lit when we had night time, and that you could see the main bands quite easily. So I got the C80ED setup on my camera tripod on the driveway and we had a good look at Jupiter and the moon with my 5mm Hyperion. The bands on Jupiter were clear and three moons were visibly. I did try pushing the power up with a barlow, but the seeing, and the lowness meant it was way too much power. But never mind. With the simple expedient of drawing a line on the drawtube with a pencil, putting the scope back into focus for the SLR was a doddle, and in fact, it turns out that the Hyperion with diagonal is almost parfocal with the SLR and 2" extension tube.

And finally, we had a clear night, decently clear too, so that I could see the milky way unaided. I couldn't quite make out M31. So I carted out the rig for a run on M31. Everything started well, level and PA'ed easily. A quick check of focus and all good. Manually set to M31, but not on the chip... I decided I couldn't be bothered trying to work it out (what with lights still being on in the house, so setup CdC and ran a 3 star align. The first problem hit me... The joystick on the gamepad only worked on one axis... Gonna have to see if I can fix that. Using the touchpad on the laptop for fine adjustments is a real pain. Still after a few minutes, all aligned, so slew to M31. Plonked almost in the centre of the viewfinder, so a quick ISO1600, 60s test frame to check, and I set PHD off to work. Using a 1 sec loop was more than enough to locate a guide star, in fact, I could see the core of M31 on the screen. Anyway, guiding off and running, I setup to take a sequence of 6 minute exposures. I opted to use ISO400 as an experiment, and to see if the higher dynamic range of the sensor would make any difference, it did, but more on that shortly.

After a while, and a check on power, I realised the battery on the lappy was going to run out, way before my powertank... that's a first, I'm not sure why, but my powertank now seems to be working better. I really do have to sort out mains power, but I want to get a large plastic container big enough to house the lappy and keep the dew off, although the simple expedient of hanging a tea towel over the LCD worked a treat on this occasion.

Then I hit my next issue. Whilst taking flats, the CLS is making for much longer flats, the CLS clip filter, decided it didn't want to clip anymore, and I heard it fall down inside the OTA, bouncing on the baffles as it went. All I can see is it's a good job the baffles were there, as they prevented the filter smacking into the back of the objective. Of course, with the clip filter no longer in the camera, there was no point trying to capture any more flats, if I tried to put the filter back, the orientation would be different. I removed the camera, and capped it, popped the rear cap on the OTA, and carefully pointed the lens at the Zenith... the filter fell back on the soft plastic of the rear cap, undamaged... phew...

Then after clearing up, I downloaded the images, and set to work on processing. Then the problems really began. I kept getting a weird grid showing through the image. First stack was Lights and Flats, as I've done for the other images. Obviously something was going on, so I put my Bias master frame in, still there.. Odd... I setup the camera in the garage and took a sequence of darks, still there. Each occasion, involved two attempts at processing post stack. In the end, I took the final stack, and tried to be as gentle as possible, yet push the data as far as I could (all good processing experience) and I managed to not bring the grid out. The noise was astonishing, given that ISO400 should induce less noise in the subs. I can only conclude that whilst ISO400 is less noisy in capture, the lower amplification of the signal in camera meant that to get the data out required far harder stretching, and I know from ordinary underexposed captures, this shows a lot more noise in the shadows...

After that experiment, I'm going to go back to using ISO800 and stay there. The noise and image is easier to deal with... Anyway, here's the end result.

Now, I want to get more data on this one, another night at ISO800 should do it... Then onto M33, and after that M45... I want to get the Merope Nebula.

Testing effectiveness of ISO

2009-09-30T01:14:00.003+01:00

After reading a lot of discussion around which ISO is best for Astro imaging, I decided to try an experiment. So, armed with the camera, 18-55 lens, a tripod and timer remote I set out to find out. I took a sequence of 5 shots each at ISO's of 100, 200, 400, 800 and 1600 (the entire range) and combined each set in DSS. The bad news is, the sky conditions were not identical in each image, there was clouds shifting through, a plane joined in the fun. Hopefully though, this won't be a problem.

Each stacked image was stretched and contrast adjusted, using curves only, nothing else has been done. No NR or any other processing. The stretch in each case was stopped when, I could increase the result no further without clipping the white point for the brighter stars.

My intent was to try and get each image looking as close as possible to each other in terms of viewable data.

ISO100

ISO200

ISO400

ISO800

ISO1600

I know I have a gradient and various foreign objects in each image, but I don't think that's an issue for this test. Something that did surprise me, despite the various conversations about when the ISO adjustments are applied is the amount of data that I was able to pull out at ISO100. From these images, my first impressions are that 200 seems to be optimal, both in terms of the amount of content and colours retained.

I then cropped the same (ish, without allowing for field rotation) from each image at about 100% for a peek at the pixels...

ISO100

ISO200

ISO400

ISO800

ISO1600

From these, the additional stretching required on the lower ISO's has introduced more noise in the background, which is kind of what I was expecting, from playing with daytime images and pulling shadow detail out in processing. I think this also shows, I wasn't able to apply the same amount of stretching to the higher ISO images, as I stopped just before clipping the white point. However, all told, I think, for me anyway, that ISO800 is probably easiest to deal with.

I'm sure there are flaws in my testing, the edits were all done at silly o'clock so it may be that more stretching would be possible on the tif's for each ISO. I also can't be certain that each image was fully stretched to it's limit.

Reworking old data

2009-09-30T01:03:00.002+01:00

I've been spending some time over the past few days reworking old data. For several reasons, 1) I've got nothing new to work on. 2) To see what I could do with some new tricks I've discovered. 3) To see what effect a couple of changes to the stack made with new information I've read.

Well, first off the stacking. As I've found that darks actually seem to detract from the faint stuff in my images and in fact make noise processing more difficuly, I decided to remove them from the mix. I also read that dSLR's automatically subtract a Bias frame from each image taken. I've only seen it mentioned in one place, but given that when I include bias frames in the mix, I get odd results with horrible green casts (without using a CLS filter) this correlates nicely.

So first off, I went back and redid my M81 M82 data. It took a few goes to get it right, but some tips I found, in the end set me on the right path

Here's the original for reference

The first attempt, where I've overdone the processing...

Then refining a bit more

and finally, about as good as my processing skill can get it at the moment. I'm sure that at some point, I'll be better at this, and will also grab some more data to add, and can therefore improve it further.

I know I've got some oddities in the background on this, that's caused by the odd overlaps between framings over three nights. That's something I do need to work out how to deal with it, but I'll get there in time.

I then moved onto my M51 data. This was originally processed with no darks, but including bias frames, and the green cast is pretty obvious

So, restack, and reprocess, using a similar process overall to the last M81/M82 I ended up with

This time, however, I didn't crop the image, but used the DSS Drizzle feature to enhance the image scale. It's worked, but I'm not sure there's much benefit over cropping to be honest. With cropping the stars in the background remain smaller, but with drizzle they seem to grow a little...

Here's another experiment, but this time with 3x drizzle instead of 2x, this was just to see what the effect would be, and if it was something I could use and get away with in future.

It's got potential, but I'm not 100% whether it'll be that useful.

Playing with the Jupiter data

2009-09-30T01:01:00.004+01:00

I've had a bit of a play with the Jupiter data, aligning the RGB channels amongst other things and it's made quite a difference. I've also managed to get something out of one of the barlowed avi's, it's pretty rubbish really, but it's the first time I've had anything from using the barlow..

and the redited originals

This one being my favourite

First Jupiter

2009-09-18T09:41:00.001+01:00

Had a smallish window of opportunity last night, about 30 minutes of outside time. I couldn't be doing with setting everything up, so I popped the Skymax SLT out for a play with Jupiter. I gave it about 40 minutes under a black bin bag (me trust the weather... not likely!!).

I shot 5 AVI's with the SPC900... two are so much mush, the seeing was carp and with the 2x barlow, that was just too much power under the conditions, one was to bring out the moons, but I can't be doing with trying to align everything so didn't bother processing that one. Here's the other two...

1202 of 1202 (I don't now why Regi did that unheard of here)..

579 of 1204 (the moons weren't added.... they were captured in the AVI)

Ah that was fun... I needed that.

Getting back in the saddle

2009-09-12T23:08:00.002+01:00

On the 12th, I had a clear night, and decided to get out the rig and run some tests. First off, getting out the rig was tricky, but with a lot of care (having a bad back really doesn't help), in pieces, I was able to get it all outside and setup. An Obsy really would make this much easier, but I don't have room... never mind.

I checked the level and this was spot on without adjustment, then powered up and polar aligned, amazingly I'd plonked it down so there was only a very minor adjustment on the Azimuth adjusters to get alignment. A check on focus, and a tweak on both the guidescope and imaging scope (although I'd added the TC to the imaging side to get 1200mm and really push the guiding) and good to balance. Started trying to balance the mount, and then my troubles began.. First off trying to get my head around what needed to be moved where with the dual mount bar. Gotta say, balancing with the scopes piggy backed was a lot easier. It did my head in for a while till I discovered that a) I needed to add the second countweight... (not more damn weight)... and I had to re adjust the C80ED tube rings. Being a bright spark, it occurred to me that putting the tube rings as far apart as possible was a really good idea, being more secure etc etc. Until that is, you find that you can't actually shift the OTA and camera far enough forward to get balanced... So in the dark, I dismounted the C80ED with camera and 2x TC still attached (I didn't want to adjust anything around the focus again), grabbed some tools and a camping lantern, and set about moving one of the tube rings along the OTA and dovetail and locking it back in place. I've gotta say this is not the worlds easiest DIY job in the dark (thankfully it wasn't cold to go with it).

Once the rings had been adjusted, allowing more play in the scope position, I was finally able to balance everything out. Phew. So I went for the N star align on EQMOD. Another problem... I couln't get CDC to tell the mount to slew. I tried for about 10 minutes, the mount would move quite happily to my control inputs from both EQMOD and the gamepad, but not from selecting a star in CDC. Till I found I was using the wrong option and instead of telling the mount to goto the star I was telling CDC to centre the star in the view... blast it. Anyway, having finally solved that one, the N Star align was easy. I then slewed around to NGC457 (The Owl Cluster) and set PHD running. After a few minutes, the green box and guiding appeared. I set the camera off on a run of 7.5 minute subs @ ISO800. Then just to finish, as I was testing, set one 20 minute sub running. When that was finished, I grabbed some flats (I forgot about the extent the TC made to the exposure times... ) and cleared up.

Anyway, the guiding worked a treat, even with the TC making 1200mm. Here's the single 20 minute sub. The green tint is from the EOS CLS Clip filter, this really works well on killing the LP around here, much more effective than the Skywatcher LPR filter. This image has had no processing done on it.

And here's the combined results.

I'm happy now that everything is working as it should, and as equally as important, I can also remember how to set it all up and make it work.

In the Telegraph

2009-09-11T08:27:00.002+01:00

One of my images from the AstroPhotographer of the year has been used in the publicity release by the Telegraph. It can be seen online Here, it's the Colourful Moon.

Astronomy Photographer of the Year

2009-09-01T12:49:00.003+01:00

I thought I'd enter some images, all a bit last minute it must be said, and uploaded 5 images to the Flikr group in the final week for submission. Astonishingly 4 of the 5 were short listed. I'm very pleased at this result, as I wasn't expecting to get any. I didn't win, but getting even 1 short listed against the quality of the competition would have been good going. Here's my short listed images...

1) NLC Panorama

2) Misty Iridium Flare

3) Colourful Moon

4) M81 and M82 widefield

Perhaps next year.

Franco Skies

2009-08-30T15:57:00.004+01:00

I took my 10x50 bins with me on holiday, I'd wanted to take my little scope, but there just wasn't room, so that I could, hopefully get some observing in, both, being further south, and with luck darker skies.

Well, both proved true very quickly. The skies were so dark, that the milky way was very visible directly overhead without any dark adaptation, and I could see no hint of LP anywhere around. Of course, the quantity of trees didn't help with seeing the horizon, but they were quite dark trees.

On the 18th, I could just about make out Ursa Major's tail through the trees, it was a little tricky to work out my bearings, but this got me sorted. Anyway, just a bit of sky watching. Throughout the evening, I saw 4 Perseids, a Tumbling Iridium (at least that's what I think it was), a very odd sight, but I don't see it being anything else. The track kept fading in and out. A few minutes later, a real bright Meteorite tore across the sky, and a bunch of other satellites joined in the fun.

The following night I got my bins out and had a good nose around. Easily finding the Coathanger, having a wander along the Milky Way through Cygnus. A little later, through a gap in the trees I spotted an odd Teapot shaped grouping of stars, and wondered whether that could actually be Sagitarius... A quick check in the books, planetarium and TL@O proved this to be correct. I had a good wander around here. The two globs M22 and M28 were easily discernible as small blobs. I could make out M8 and I think NGC6530. M21 was another easily seen target, and I think I may have seen M20 (or that might have been wishful thinking)... And moving higher up M23, 24 and 25. Wow, what a busy area that teapot is.

Anyway, most of the following nights were spent looking at the same thing, and trying to find and prove to myself that I had indeed seen these targets. I also shared the bins with friends and family, so they could see what I was looking at, mounting them on my camera tripod.

I also tried to capture some images of the teapot, both a widefield with the 18-55 lens

and a bit closer in with the Nifty Fifty

Star Trails - Part Deux

2009-08-12T15:58:00.003+01:00

I found a little trick (thanks Dangerous_Dave) paint in black on the frames that you don't want the planes to show and they disappear when combined... cool... and a quick fix on the flare

I also trailed the other images I took, in which I only caught a satellite and no Perseids... this is only 25 frames combined, thus the shorter trails

Startrails

2009-08-12T11:20:00.002+01:00

I had a bash at combining the 83 frames I took last night for the Perseids into a startrails image. The Startrails application is amazingly easy to use for this, load the images, click the trails button, sit back and wait. The foreground is dull, I wasn't aiming specifically to capture a startrails image in the first place... I've also got an Iridium flare and a pair of planes ... the Perseids shown earlier are in the image somewhere... but I can't find them.

AAPOD

2009-08-12T09:25:00.003+01:00

I've only just noticed... but I got an AAPOD... Amateur Astro Photo of the Day

AAPOD

Very Cool

Perseids

2009-08-11T23:15:00.002+01:00

For the first time in what seems ages, the sky cleared as the sun went down. As tonight is one of the best nights to see the Perseid meteor shower (and with a tent up in the garden, there's no danger of getting the scope out, assuming of course I could carry it anyway) I got out one of the sun loungers, setup the camera on a tripod next to me, lay back with a pair of binoculars and waited.

When I setup, the sky was still light enough to show some blue. And I watched as the sky darkened, the stars started to show. Cassie turned her face toward me, then as the sky darkened further, the great wings of Cygnus spread across me. To the accompaniment of small furry winged creatures... teeny bats whizzing around over the garden.. never noticed them before.

Watching the sky generally, I noticed other things, constellations, Draco, Lyra, Lacerta all showing up nicely. The band of the milky way, a faintly glowing ribbon, delicately connecting Cassie to Cygnus, almost as if the Celestial Queen was trying to capture the swan.

Over the course of an hour and a half I witnessed 9 Perseids, from the quite dim, up to the blazingly bright, leaving an incandescent trail across the sky behind it.

One in this skimming the bottom of Cassie

One in this passing just over M31

Two in this, both starting at the centre, one up to the corner, and one below it.

11 Satellites including a spectacular Iridium flare, at last a magnitude -6. I caught this one, it's actually a composite of two images, of course, the timing of the shots on the camera and the flare were not in sync.

and a seperate flare, not an Iridium though

The camera was set to jpg, so I might have a go at a couple of things, an animation and a trails.

I also, with the viewing of some autumn friends had a wander around with the bins, reaquainting myself. M31, and I was amazed at just how easily I found this one, M103, the double cluster and the Mirfak association, amazingly clear, all of them, given how low down, and the slight mist glow at those altitudes. I had a look around for the owl cluster, but I'm not sure a pair of 10x50's cut it. I also had a wander around Cygnus just lost in all those stars...

I really enjoyed that, the more so, given the total lack of opportunity over the past couple of months. It's got me thinking about what I want to achieve over the Autumn and Winter.

Update on the Rig and a couple of widefields

2009-08-06T07:53:00.003+01:00

I've added a couple of bits to my rig over the past couple of months, so now the guide scope is mount next to the imaging scope on a side by side bar, and I've got a set of collimating rings, allowing me to adjust the guide scope if needed. I've also now got a proper power setup, meaning I won't be limited to 2.5 hours from the powertank. It'll be nice to get it out and try it, just hope I can remember how.

Given the crummy weather and lack of dark skies, I've not had the gear our for a couple of months, but there have been a couple of clearish spells that lasted long enough for me to pop the camera on a tripod and try a couple of things.

First off, using the nifty fifty (aka, the Canon EF 50mm II), bit limited in sub length at this focal length, but 10x8s f2.2 @ISO800

Then a few nights later another gap. This time I tried to do a panoramic of the milky way, 3 panes of 10x30s f3.5 18mm @ISO800

They both need some work. I now have an adapter that allows me to fit my LPR filter to the nifty, so that'll be good for some tracked shots. I also need to work out the best aperture to use as the setting has caused some oddities around the edge of the frame. I also need to think about the best way to setup and adjust the tripod for the pano. It was really tricky trying to adjust the head to pass along the milky way and keep roughly the same orientation.

Sky At Night - August

2009-07-16T13:23:00.002+01:00

Yay.... I got my first image printed in the pages of the magazine this month. The image is below, it's great when you see the first one in print.

Lunar Corona and some NLC's

2009-07-13T00:42:00.002+01:00

A couple of weeks ago (I can't believe I didn't post this at the time) I saw a lovely sight of the moon low down surrounded by clouds. This caused a wonderful Corona and I set about trying to capture it. I tried a 3 shot bracket, but 3 shots wasn't wide enough to capture the entire dynamic range. I ended up using 6, manually adjusted between each shot. After some playing around at merging them, and trying a couple of tools, my first attempts failed as the software couldn't determine enough information from the subject I guess, I ended up with this :

On Monday 6th, I gave a talk at my Astro society on Imaging with cheap and inappropriate equipment, it was what I had so I did it, the images are all posted on here. The talk went down well, as were a couple of the mods I'd carried out to make things better for me.

Then tonight, without having seen or done anything astronomical for a while now I looked out, and I saw an amazing display of NoctiLucent Clouds. I dashed back in and grabbed my camera and tripod, this was even better than the previous view. Unfortunately, it didn't last as the clouds were making there presence felt, but here's the images

And I took some with the intention of making a panoramic or two.

My first attempt to create a 3x2 mosaic didn't work as I couldn't align the two rows, but I did them separately anyway. Will have to think about that one for next time.

then as the display began to fade, the clouds moved in. I hope there are more over the next couple of weeks.

Not Iridiums

2009-06-29T22:54:00.001+01:00

But rather a couple of other flares... in daylight. Calsky provides predictions of all sorts of flares not just Iridiums. On friday night, I saw IGS1B flaring merrily to itself. It travels very fast and the flare duration was only about 4 seconds. I didn't catch it, my watch isn't accurate enough, and I hadn't allowed for it. Tonight, Calsky predicted MetOp A, flaring at Mag -5. An absolute belter, at 2140. A bit early for the skies you might think, but I setup anyway with the Satcatcher, but even stopping the lens down to f22 (yes overkill and guaranteed to find all the DB's and diffraction central...) I still couldn't get the exposure down enough. So no image of the flare, but what a beauty in that blue blue sky. This one was also very short, maybe only 5 seconds again. It's interesting to see these others flare away.

My First NLC's

2009-06-17T10:06:00.002+01:00

I've been trying to spot NLC's (Noctilucent Clouds) since I first heard of them last year. Well I did some research and worked out where to look, always a good start of course. The downside is, that most of that direction is covered by trees from my garden. I did get a glimpse through them though..

Then, after some thought, and trying a few different locations, including the bathroom window, I hit upon the plan of trying over the road at the front. Not being keen on taking the camera, at night onto public ground, but, twas the only way. The view was simply breathtaking and so eerie. The NLC's looked almost like clouds of electricity low in the north west.

And my favourite

I'll be on the look out for more.

More Moon images

2009-06-09T10:59:00.002+01:00

A few images of the moon over the past couple of weeks. The lack of dark, and the weather is not helping my astronomy... Although I do now have a dual mount bar on the HEQ5 so the C80ED and the Konus are mounted side by side. This allows far more flexibility, so I could also mount the Skymax instead of the C80ED and guide that too now.

A couple of longer exposures with cloud about to see what sort of effects it produced

And I decided to get the C80ED out on the camera tripod for some Moon shots. These were all taken using a Kenko 2xTC. The 2" fittings compared to the Skymax means that I can get the blue sky colour and not have to deal with horrible vignetting.

ISS and Flares

2009-05-22T23:10:00.002+01:00

I had a bash the other night, using the Skymax on the HEQ5 to try and image the ISS. The first pass, the sky was too light to try and align to use the Satellite Tracker on the lappy, so I tried releasing the clutches and manually tracking. Sounds easy, but it's not. I had the 450d and a 2xTC on the Skymax and struggled to get focused. I finally managed to get focus just as the ISS disappeared behind the house.

The following pass the sky was much darker, and I tried with the webcam instead. This time I was able to use the Satellite Tracker. I'm not 100% sure I setup correctly, but after PA'ing I ran a quick goto align, then after the ISS had crested the horizon told the software to track it. It seemed to do a good job of tracking, but was always a little behind and I couldn't get it to catch up, so again no results.

I will try this again.

There were a few clear spells allowing me to attempt a couple of flares with the Satcatcher. The first one I got was out of focus... not sure why, but I blew it.

The next one, was too dim against the bright sky.

Then, too low behind the hedge.

As the clouds were moving in, finally, the Mag -7 was bright enough, and high enough to catch.

450d with the nifty fifty, 30s, f2.2 ISO200. Iridium 49

Phew... First decent one in ages.

Some more Lunar fun

2009-05-06T08:09:00.003+01:00

The weather has not been good for the past few days, but I have been able to get a few shots of the moon using the Skymax on a camera tripod.

This first one was using the 55-250 handheld, the vignetting on the Skymax is really bad on a single frame against the bright blue sky, this works so much better.

Then later on, I setup the Skymax

and a subtle colour

I ordered a motor focuser, designed for the NexStar 5, but given that it was 80% off, it was too good a bargain to miss out on, and I got to test it out last night, again the Skymax on the camera tripod. The sky was very misty, to the point, the moon had a very noticeable corona, that even came through on these shots, but I've been able to process them and it's gone.

and a colour

The motor focuser works very well, but doesn't fit on the scope easily. At the moment, it's wedged in place on the end of the dovetail, which works, but I need something a little more rigid to hold it in place. I've no ideas at present, but I'm sure something will come to me.

Moon and Flare

2009-05-01T10:07:00.003+01:00

My back is still bad, so I didn't get the gear out. I did setup the Skymax on the camera tripod and grab a shot of the moon with the 450d

and with a subtle colour

And one flare, with the SatCatcher and the EF50mm, this lens is superb for this sort of thing as the wide aperture it can use lets in so much light, I don't need to ramp up the ISO..

Iridium 65 - Mag -5

I hope my back feels better soon, I want to try my hand at M101 and need the HEQ5 for that.

Halo, Moon and Flare

2009-04-29T23:49:00.001+01:00

As the day was ending, and the sun sinking into the west, I looked up and saw a rainbow patch in the sky directly above the sun... Quickly grabbing the camera, and stepping outside, so I had a bushy tree between me and the sun I grabbed a couple of quick shots

and with a plane

these have been ID'ed to me as Upper Tangent Arc's, first time I've caught something like this on camera.

I kept an eye out as night fell, to see what the conditions would do, there was some high thin mist again, and my back was worse than normal, so I didn't get out the HEQ5. I did set the Skymax on the camera tripod for a couple of shots at the moon

Another Horns shot

And a normal angled one

Next up was the first flare of the night. I setup the Satcatcher, with the 450d and EF 50 mm lens mounted ready, and watched the clock tick away, and caught it

Iridium 12 - Mag -2

Then, with an hour and a half before the next flare, I setup the little NexStar (much easier to move about as it's so much lighter) with the Skymax on it and had a bash at some more webcam work.

Firstly a wide view using only the webcam of the region I was aiming at

Then a couple of closeups with the Ultima x2 barlow as well...

Piccolomini - I'm not sure why this has come out so noisy.

Jannsen itself, I pushed the frame rate up to 15 fps for this

I packed up at that point, and waited for the next couple of flares to come along...

Iridium 62 - Mag 0 plus a plane over my neighbours house

And finally Iridium 57 - Mag -7, I didn't give myself enough time to line this up and it was a bit rushed

It was good to see a few flares and image them again. I enjoyed that, it's good to get out even with limited facilities.

On the horns of the moon

2009-04-29T13:29:00.004+01:00

A lovely crescent moon was riding the sky last night, and thankfully the predicted severe weather didn't materialise. There was mist high in the sky, so I didn't bother with attempting any deep sky imaging, and went for the moon instead. I put the Skymax outside for 30 minutes to acclimate before taking the HEQ5 out. The moon was low enough by this point, that I had to put the mount on the decking (a really poor choice of surface, as it bounces a lot) to be able to get an angle on it, thanks to the tall trees at the end of my neighbours garden. Still I figured I'd get an hour and decided I'd go for a mosaic using my webcam. So after levelling, polar aligning and balancing I got going.

This is a 10 pane mosaic using the SPC900, each pane was about 650 frames, stacked and processed using Registax, merged in iMerge and tweaked in GIMP.

Click for bigger

I also got an AVI of Saturn. It's not great, I've still got to work out the settings on the webcam properly, but this was using the Ultima x2 barlow.

800 of 1800 frames

As I was packing away, I left the Skymax outside for one last shot using the 450d at prime, and angled the camera to get this

I'd already checked and there was a flare (Iridium 21) predicted for about 20 minutes later, so I set up the Satcatcher and the 450d with the EF 50mm lens. Having made some modifications with different mounting plates (I have the same mounting plates and adapters on all my gear now, it makes swapping the camera about a lot easier) I need to tweak the configuration and may need to use a longer piece of wood as the compass wasn't pointing accurately. And to top things off, the clouds were moving in. So this was shot through the clouds, although, not the brightest of flares at Mag 0, it was still bright enough to cut through the clouds.

Only the moon

2009-04-28T09:33:00.002+01:00

Not much doing last night with the skies except for plenty of cloud. I did manage to get a shot of the moon in the gap that appeared last night. I could see if coming, so I popped the skymax on a camera tripod, and put it out to cool... 450d on the back. My first shot was a bit overexposed, and it was clear from that there was quite a bit of mist up high even in the gap I was using...

Diana and Hermes

2009-04-27T00:04:00.002+01:00

After a clear and lovely day, there were hints of clouds off in the east and south, but I'd seen hints that Mercury would have a pointer in the young moon with the Seven Sisters just above. So I got out after the sun had sunk below the horizon and went hunting. I used the 10x50's and after a few minutes found the moon, but the sky was still to bright to find the faint dot of Mercury. I left it a little while, gambling that the clouds would hold away, went back about 15 minutes later, and there, a little below the moon was the innermost planet. It took a little while longer, but as the sky darkened I was able to see Mercury with the naked eye.

I grabbed the camera, on the redsnapper, and using the 55-250 caught a few shots.

With a plane that moved quite a way during the exposure

A couple of different variations with clouds

Any my favourite, I saw a big bank of cloud moving in, and waited until it partially filled the frame, threatening the Moon and Mercury and caught this

The clouds moved in with a vengeance after that. I'm glad I got to see Mercury at last, I've been trying for quite some time now. I have now seen all the planets from Saturn inwards.

Planets, Sharing and nothing doing - Addendum

2009-04-26T08:56:00.001+01:00

I forgot to add it to the entry, but I worked out why the goto slew was all out by the same amount on each one... I PA'ed on BST, not UT, not the first time I've done it, and I doubt it'll be the last. I think it's time for a check list in big letters...

Planets, Sharing and nothing doing

2009-04-26T00:14:00.002+01:00

The forecast was wrong again... odd that. So as the evening wore on the skies cleared. Enough so that I could actually see the skies in the west. I tried to find Mercury, both unaided and with the 10x50s. I even went as far as to pop the bins on the satcatcher and use that to get them pointed at the right spot. Nothing doing. Not a shine of the elusive little winged one.

Anyway, a little later, and with friends over, I was asked to setup the scope for a look at Saturn. I grabbed the Skymax on the NexStar, a great little combination for this sort of thing, levelled, aligned on Saturn, and tried a number of EP combinations. I ended up using the 5mm Hyperion, which for proper observing, giving x260, is a little OTT given the 102mm aperture, but for showing someone who's not looking for proper observing, the view was fine. Even to the point of seeing a moon or two. After everyone had taken their turn at the ep, I had another look, and cleared up. Putting the power pack back on charge.

About an hour later, the sky still being clear, I grabbed the Guided setup and went out for an imaging session. I'd decided to have a go at the S@N imaging challenge, to capture Markarians chain with about 200-400mm. I setup the camera piggy backed on the Konus, focused using Saturn. I put the Meade DSI on the C80ED with the intention of attmepting to use it for imaging, and tried the SPC900 on the Konus for guiding, in theory, PHD is able to use a normal webcam by stakcing frames on the fly. Well, suffice to say things were not to be. I had to add the second weight to get balanced. The Goto align didn't want to play ball, and no matter what I did everything was out a little (It's just this minute occurred to me why DOH!!!) I spent ages trying to get the SPC900 and the Meade focused, only to find that no matter what I did, I couldn't get PHD to find a star at all with the SPC900. I then tried to guide using the Meade on the C80ED, and for the first few attempts, PHD threw errors saying it couldn't talk to the mount. I ended up having to close PHD and start again. Then PHD calibrated ok and it sort of worked in that not quite kind of way for about 2 minutes... throwing Low SNR errors and losing the star a little afterwards.

I then moved the Meade back to the Vista, and again had to refocus, I finally managed to do this, went off to try again, set the camera running, checked the frame capture and no stars at all. The objective lens had dewed up. No dew shield on the camera lens. The scopes objectives were much better, but even they were beginning to dew up. I decided enough was enough, slewed around to Saturn again, put the camera back on the C80ED, sorted out focus, packed up and came in. Now to warm up.

Showing everyone Saturn and a moon was great, but I got frustrated with everything else, so largely one of those nights. Better luck next time.

A poke in the eye addendum

2009-04-23T12:24:00.002+01:00

I've noticed that I made a bit of a mental miscalculation when I posted this, and indicated that the sub lengths were 20 minutes each, they weren't they were 10 minutes each, and I've mistyped it on the images too, that I can't change easily.

A poke in the eye

2009-04-23T00:19:00.011+01:00

My plan for tonight, another clear night, the fifth in a row... (is this a record ?) was to have a go at a widefield image of Leo using the Nifty Fifty piggy backed on the scopes. A couple of problems with this. The angles were all wrong to fit Leo in the FOV, and the mount wouldn't balance in either axis. I may invest in a small ballhead and mount that on the piggy back screw to allow more flexibility in camera positioning.

So having decided that was a non starter, having already PA'ed, I grabbed all the wires and the lappy, hooked everything together, ran a quick 3 star align, thinking initially to have a go at the Leo Triplet and add some time to my previous image, but changed my mind, and thus my alignment stars and went for M64, the Black eyed galaxy instead.

Having read something on SGL about a method for removing horizontal banding, I had a plan. I set guiding running, set the camera for 10 minute exposures and to capture 6 of them. Then set a countdown timer to go off after an hour. The intention being that I would rotate the camera a little in the focuser, capture another hour etc. I noticed, however, that after only four subs, PHD was having a fit about low SNR, and clouds had moved in. They looked heavy enough for a spot of rain, so I grabbed some flats, and whilst clearing up, grabbed a few darks. I'm not sure I'm going to use them yet though.

This is 4x600s @ ISO800, with 3 flats.

and a crop

I have to say, that I'm not sure I'm going to bother getting more data at the moment, whilst you can tell what it is, it's too small for my frac to do justice to, there's just not enough sensor coverage for any decent amount of detail to show through. Time to find another target I think.

Of course, within 40 minutes of clearing up, the clouds had moved on and the sky was clear again. Ho hum.

NGC4088 and the Supernova

2009-04-22T11:58:00.002+01:00

I decided to have a try at capturing the Supernova last night. So I setup the EQMOD goto features and it positioned the galaxy spot on in the middle of the sensor.

My first attempts at processing this had all sorts of oddities in the background

12x 360s @ ISO800, no darks, 9 flats, and bias
450d on C80ED
Guided by Meade DSI1C on Vista 80s with PHD
Stacked in DSS
Mucked about with in PS

and a crop

So I grabbed some darks, and added them into the mix, but that only made the image worse, and I didn't bother to save it.

I had a restack, threw out all the darks and bias frames, and most of the flats too... It looked much better, I wish there was some logic to all this....

12x360s @ISO800, 450d on C80ED
3 flats

Guided using a Meade DSI1C on Vista 80S with PHD

Click for bigger

and a crop

After that, with power running low on all the components, the lock gone, thanks to the meridian flip, I gave up, packed up and came in. I'm very pleased with the second set of images.

EQMOD

2009-04-22T09:19:00.001+01:00

I have but one thing to say...

EQMOD Rocks

After I got the HEQ5, I started investigating guiding options and checking out costs. Well, It turned out, that the USB-TTL cable was by far the cheapest and offered the most capability. So I took the plunge and ordered one. I also ordered a Cat5 flylead so I could but the end off and finish the cable to the mount. After some mildly scary, well it felt like it to me, plugging it in, and powering up all the components (I didn't want to fry the mount cos I'd messed up the wiring) all worked perfectly.

So, over the past few days, well nights, I've been completing the setup.

On Saturday, with the cable still not 100% complete, the wires are not held together tightly as yet, I went out to test the rig. My first attempt at guiding worked perfectly using PHD, and leaving EQMOD and ASCOM on the default settings. Ok I had some issues, but that was down to inaccurate focus on the guide scope (easily solved).

On Sunday, I tested out full guiding, and was able to take 20 minute subs, although the first one felt like hours as I was waiting for the capture to finish. One thing I did find, that to adjust the alignment, given the Syntrek handset is no longer attached was quite a faff as I had to use the lappy touchpad to make positioning adjustments.

So on Monday, I hooked up an old logitech gamepad, set that up for EQMOAD/ASCOM control, and on testing found that, whilst I have a small issue with the joystick contacts in the gamepad (I need to look into this, possibly literally), it works perfectly, and I was able to adjust the position of the scope from where I needed to be, so much easier.

Then yesterday, I setup the Satellite tracker control program. I've got all the communications working, which was the hardest part. The SatTracker program is designed for Meade and Celestron mounts, so needs a couple of additional modules installed to enable comms to the HEQ5. EQMOD talks to the mount, and is controlled by EQMOD/LX which is a protocol converter from Meade LX200 speak to ASCOM speak. As this is talked to by an IP connect, and the SatTracker software only talks to a com port, a piece of virtual comm port software is required to redirect the com port contriol signals to the IP socket... Eventually I got that all setup right, signed up to Space-track, and in theory it's good to go. I've yet to test out this component.

Then last night I setup the Goto and CdC integration. Very easy to setup. CdC already talks EQMOD/ASCOM, so within the EQMOD app, click N Star Align, back to CdC, select an alignment star and tell CdC to control the mount to it, align with the gamepad, click align in EQMOD, and repeat. After doing a 3 star align on Alkaid, Denebola and Dubhe, I used the Goto to take me to NGC4088, my target from last night, and NGC4088 landed smack bang in the middle of the FOV as my image from last night will attest, I didn't adjust the position in anyway.

And then one last thing I found last night, as the mount tracked up to the zenith and hit the meridian flipover, I was keeping a close eye on it to prevent accidents. EQMOD prevented the mount moving further (and prevented PHD forcing the mount to continue, then after a few minutes, forced the mount to Park.

The total setup time, from carting out the mount and scope, to being on target and guiding (and I had to work out how to setup and align the goto so it should be less next time around) was 25 minutes...

Brilliant, and all the software is free. The cabling cost me about £20 and some nervousness. I'm happy and really impressed with the ease of use.

M51 reprocessed and NGC4088 + SN2009a

2009-04-21T23:39:00.002+01:00

I had a restack of my M51 data yesterday, at the suggestion from a couple of people on SGL, without the darks I'd taken. The results I found astonishing. The image was easier to process, less noisy and had more faint detail revealed. The connection between the two galaxies is now clear and the tail can also be seen (ok they're dim and probably more data will help with that, also if you look closely, there are a couple of dim fuzzies above and to the right that couldn't be seen in my original stack.

And I found I could crop in on this without too much bother, as the noise was less

I wonder what the criteria is for requiring darks... I know I don't get any issues with ampglow, and the DSS process can deal with hot pixels without the darks. This is going to take some experimenting.

And onto last night. I got EQMOD fully working now, but I'll write that up seperately as there's more to it. Suffice to say, I used the EQMOD goto and landed NGC4088 bang in the middle of the chip without having to reposition. I captured 12 x 6 minute useable subs, and here's the results without darks.

and cropped

the background isn't as nice, and the stack had a green tint to it. This needs some more work and probably a restack. Still it was good to get, and you can see the supernova in the heart of NGC4088 to.

Adding more time to M51

2009-04-21T02:24:00.001+01:00

Another clear night, so I setup again. I'm working on streamlining the setup process, and I've managed to get the entire thing, from deciding to setup, to starting capturing the first full image to under 25 minutes. That's cart out all the gear, level, polar align and fit all the bits together. Wire up the lappy, I added a game controller yesterday, more on that shortly, manually slew to a nice bright star, that way I can set the PHD loop time to very low, and the calibration is over and done in short order. Slew to my target, M51 again, take a series of framing shots and adjust the mount, engage guiding and away.

The game controller, talks to ASCOM and allows me to control the scope position, in the same way the ASCOM control buttons do, but instead of having to mess about with the lappy, I can just move the joystick, much easier. Next up, will be to sort out the Goto features of ASCOM, although I may wait till I'm properly powered. With guiding running my powertank is only good for about 2.5 hours.

Anyway, I captured a series of 11 x 10 minutes exposures @ ISO800 and added it to my previous nights 20 minute exposures. After staking in DSS and pulling and pushing in PS, this is the result.

It's an improvement, there's a bit more in there, not as much as I thought there might be though. I may well have another go, next clear night and see what happens with 15 minute ISO800 subs.

Full Moon and getting going with guiding

2009-04-19T22:37:00.001+01:00

I managed to get a shot of the nearly full moon, I can't believe I didn't post these. They aren't the best, it's tricky with no contrast to focus on. It also turns out that my little skymax has some collimation issues I need to sort out but I'll come to that in a mo.

and some colour

About a week later, and more clear skies. I decided to have a go at M51 using the Skymax. During focusing of the 450d, at the 10x magnification I noticed that the out of focus ring patterns were not circular, so this means the collimation is out. I setup in the normal way and, using the 450d, started capturing data. For some reason, and I think it's down to a combination of things, trailing being the biggest, the 2 minute subs won't stack, but here's a single image frame

Anyway, after nearly another week, some more clear skies, and this time, feeling brave, I decided to try out guiding. A little while back, I bought a USBTTL cable from FTDI and fitted the end of a Cat 5 LAN cable to it. I'd tested this with EQMOD for mount control, and was able to control the movement of the scope with it.

I setup the lappy with all the cables plugged in, attempted to focus my Konus guidescope as best as I could, using PHD and the DSI1C, aligned the scopes on Regulus (it's good and bright), set PHD to guiding. The first attempt failed as there wasn't enough motion from PHD. I remembered a mention in a lecture given by Nik Szymanek about this, and found the right setting. It was too low for the little 400mm Konus, so I increased it and tried again. This time it worked perfectly, and within a few minutes PHD told me it was guiding. I set the 450d to capture a single 10 minute sub and waited.

Some time later.. (well only 10 minutes, but it felt like an age...) the camera stopped and I went to check. All the stars were spot on, no problems at all.

I swung the scope around to the M51 area (I'm not using the slewing motors as yet, it'll go through my limited power supply in too short a time, that's for mains power). Took a test shot, tweaked the aim until I was happy, setup for guiding again, although there aren't any bright stars around there, and it took a little tweaking to get it running. Set the camera to 20 minutes, I wanted to see what was possible, and set it off. After only a few minutes, PHD was complaining that the guidestar had been lost. Damn. Clicked stop and guide again, hoping that it hadn't been for too long a period and left it. Well this carried on, and after the third attempted sub, I had a more thorough look at things. I found that the Meade software contains a focus enhancement tool, and I used this to tweak the focus. I'd just for it to as high a value as possible when the mount ran out of power. Ah well, a bunch of wasted subs, but some useful knowledge gained.

Then tonight, only one night later, and again it's clear. This time, armed with my knew knowledge, and already tweaked focus (although I did check it as I'd moved the mount and scopes in) I set out to try again. This time, despite the skies looking somewhat damp, I had no problems locking a guidestar and keeping it locked. I set the camera off for 20 minutes again, and let it run.

After some time, the mount power was running out, I'd only caught 5 frames, and I'd been hoping for 6 (ah well) and all 5 were showing as spot on. I also spotted that the screen on PHD was looking odd. As I was done anyway, I stopped PHD and had a look at the objectives. The Konus was heavily dewed up, the C80ED much less so. I can only conclude that this is the difference in the dew shields. I guess the next purchase is going to be dew control, hmmm, I'll need more power for that too...

I grabbed some darks and flats... The darks are going to be scaled, there's no way I'm waiting an hour to get 3 darks.

After stacking and processing, this is the end result.

I had to do some heavy duty noise reduction, but as I only got 5 subs .. I'm happy and looking forward to being able to grab a bunch of 10 minutes at ISO 800 to add to this.

Saturday Night's Moon

2009-04-07T10:36:00.002+01:00

Just a single Moon shot, the sky clouded over soon after and hasn't been clear since.

The Skymax 102 on a camera tripod with the 450d at prime

And with a little colour lifted up

Another Moon and some lunar surface mosaicing

2009-04-04T18:10:00.002+01:00

I managed to get out again on Thursday night. First off to grab another shot of the moon with the 450d on the Skymax, tripod mounted

I also pulled up the colour a little

I then setup the Skymax on the HEQ5 and tested out what I thought would make a good planetary/lunar camera, the aGent V4. It's a very nice webcam, and supports high frame rates etc, but the lack of a gain control in software makes it unusable for Astro. So I used the SPC900 to capture some close in shots. I had a bash with the Ultima barlow to start with, but I'm having real problems stacking the image. This is the best I've come up with, but there's something not right with it. I suspect it's down to tracking issues at the high magnification involved.

I popped the SLR back on with a 2x TC and had a bash at a small three pane mosaic, firing off 20 frames for each pane, then stacking in Registax and mosaicing in imerge.

I then thought, as I hadn't done one yet, I'd have a go at a terminator mosaic. So 9 AVI's of about 1200 frames, registax processed about 1000 of each, and mosaiced in imerge

As I was in the groove and capturing well, I had a bash at a full mosaic. I hadn't thought anything about doing this, so it was a bit of a suck it and see approach to capturing each pane. This is 18 panes details as for the terminator mosaic

As you can see, I appear to have missed a few bits. I need to work out a more methodical approach to capturing the data. I will have another go at this.

I then had a bash at Saturn using a 5x barlow and seperatly the 2x barlow, but the AVI's won't stack and to behonest they were a bit (well a lot) rubbish. I think, partly, this was down to dewing up of the corrector so I will be making a dew shield out of some camping mat.

The HEQ5 works really well for this, the Skymax is such a small little scope, it looks a bit like a toy, but it works very well. Oddly, I find the focuser on the Skymax easier to use than the focuser on the C80ED. A fun session.

The Moon, Day's 5 and 6 and More data for M81/82

2009-04-02T00:03:00.004+01:00

I managed to grab a shot of the moon with the Skymax in a hole in the cloud for day 5, the image isn't great, the scope didn't have time to cool down, and that is important, it was also a bit rushed thanks to the clouds buzzing around, but I got it.

Then today has been lovely clear blue skies, with the odd whisp of cloud drifting through. Only to clear completely just after sunset. This time I allowed the Skymax to cool, even though it's near ambient anyway as it's kept in the garage, and I could tell the difference straight away, even through the camera Viewfinder.

I lifted up the colour also.

I had been concerned that perhaps the Skymax needed collimating, and was going to try a startest, I will at some point, but I think these images indicate that it's actually ok.

Then I setup the rig for some more time on M81/M82. By using the 24x80 finder scope, I spent a lot less time faffing trying to find them, so have got a lot more time imaging. Although, for some reason, I seem to be only able to get 2 minute exposures, whereas I was getting 3 last time out. Actually thinking back on it, I may know why. When I setup the HEQ5's polarscope I set it up using GMT. My watch, now being on BST is one hour ahead of GMT. I used my watch time, not GMT for the setting circles on the polarscope, so I guess that the Polar Alignment was a little out. Must remember that one.

So after running for nearly 3 hours, I got another load of 2 minute subs. Stacking in DSS, which threw one away, I ended up with 168 subs stacked, 134 x 2 minutes and 34 x 3 minutes, with 63 darks, 63 flats and bias frames, then stretched and processed in PS.

I'm really pleased with the result, and I don't think there is any benefit in going further, at least until I get guiding working that is.

Now, I've got to work out what to do next.

The Moon, Day 4 and a test

2009-03-31T10:09:00.003+01:00

The day ended with clouds in the North heading in, and clear towards the moon. I grabbed the Skymax and 450d on a camera tripod and took a shot of the moon. I'd like to get a good sequence of each day and make a montage, but I don't think it's going to happen...

Then, after getting the moon shot, I spotted some planes flying high, and figured they'd be good practice for panning at these focal lengths for when the ISS is passing through and I get a go at imaging it up close. Not easy to do, and it's a bit dark given the time, but it's worked. I feel I need to do some more of these practising, it's actually quite fun too. This was tracked using the Celestron 6x30 finder I'm using on the Skymax

Weekend Moons and more time

2009-03-30T01:28:00.002+01:00

Saturday had a few moments early evening, when the moon poked here nose through the clouds. The thin sliver of a two day old moon was lovely. I got a couple of shots using the Skymax 102 on a camera tripod

I thought I'd see what a different orientation would look like

I then removed the Skymax and setup with the 55-250 to capture some Earthshine, whilst the moon was cradled in the trees.

That was that, the clouds then covered everything.

Sunday was a reasonably nice day, but cloudy, however, by the time evening came around, the skies had cleared. I had another pop with the Skymax at the moon, the sky was light enough, I was able to get some blue.

The evening wore on, and thanks to the clock changes it took, what seemed forever to get dark. By 9pm, the last clouds had gone and the sky was dark, and crystal clear. I got out the gear, levelled, polar aligned, and went hunting for Bodes and the Cigar galaxy to add some more time.

After faffing for an hour, trying to locate them, and eating through my power pack, I'd had enough, I just couldn't work out the right position. So I popped the 17mm Hyperion in the Konus and used my 24x80 finder scope. After only a moment, both patches of grey were visible. This is the first time I've seen them both in a scope, quite an amazing sight, even if all I could see was a faint, couple of pale grey smudges.

Finally, having managed to find them, I setup for 3 minute exposures and set the gear capturing. By the time the powertank ran out, I'd managed only 34 subs, if only I'd managed this earlier, I'd have got 45 or 50... Ho hum. I grabbed darks and flats, and set the stack running, combining all the data from this and the previous session on the 18th. A bit of processing in PS and here's the result

I'm really pleased with the results, there's even a hint of red beginning to show on the cigar.

Group Gazing

2009-03-26T10:48:00.003Z

Yesterday evening, as the sun was going down, there were a group of us out on a walk. I'd checked on HA, and noted a mag -5 flare and the ISS passes. I had a compass with me to make sure I got my orientation correct. So a couple of minutes before the flare, we all stood with a good view of the correct patch of sky, and did some star and constellation spotting in the still quite bright western sky. Gemini, Orion, And a few stars, Sirius being the most obvious. We had a brief discussion about why Betelguese looked red and the scale of what we were looking at. Then at just the right moment, I got everyone looking north, and we all saw the mag -5 flare. The bright ones are always more impressive. I explained what it was we had just seen, and everyone was quite amazed. About half an hour later, after a bit more of a walk, and a bit more constellation spotting. Orion was striding proudly across the sky and was really very clear (when not obscured by the fast moving clouds). I pointed out Leo and Saturn sitting just below. Unfortunatly, no one had any bino's good or otherwise, so couldn't see anything more than points. But, we all turned around and watched the ISS climb gracefully into the sky, pass overhead and into the trees. That was the end of the walk anyway, so no more then. Shortly after the clouds set in good and proper and that was that.

Iridium 57 and M67

2009-03-24T00:23:00.002Z

I got another Iridium flare last night, this time a mag -3. I really like this one, using the 50mm prime certainly gathers a load more light, and 50mm gives a very nice image scale.

I also watched the ISS drift gracefully over with the boys.

A bit later on, as the sky was clear, I decided to setup the scope for gathering a couple more hours of data on the Leo Triplet. There were two problems with this, one I couldn't find them again, and two the wind was gusting strongly causing issues in any sub that went longer than 1 minute. After probably 45 minutes trying to find them and work out my max sub length, which wasn't enough for galaxies anyway.. I gave up and went for a cluster. They don't need the sub length, so that's fine... Anyway, whilst I was looking through the captured images prior to the stack I found this

I also spotted another satellite higher in the sky, but I've not been able to determine what it is.

Anyway, I swung the scope around and worked in locating M67. This to took a while, and it was only with reference to nightwatch, I realised I'd got my scales wrong and was looking too high. So downwards a little, and there it was. Excellent. I set the gear going for 60s subs.

After capturing and processing with bias frames I ended up with this

I have to say I'm not happy with the result, it's come out very green, and I've had to try and process that out. This only seems to be happening since I started using Bias frames, so I'm going to restack this image, my M81/M82 and my triplet images without the Bias frames and see how they come out. I think I may go back to my original methods as the colour balance was always better for me.

Iridium 30 and the Triplet

2009-03-24T00:18:00.003Z

I was able to get out and capture my first flare in a while. I setup the Satcatcher, and used my 50mm prime lens

Then a little later, I setup the HEQ5. I tried to find M81/M82 again to add a load more data, but failed, I think this was down to a high level mist around that area. It certainly made things tricky. But whilst I was trying to find them and taking test shots, I did get this ...

I don't know what it is, but...

I gave up and slewed around to have a go at the Leo Triplet. I found the correct three really quickly and set about capturing data. I found, to my surprise that I was able to get some 4 minute subs unguidded. However, it got a little breezy so I had to stop the capture and go back to 3 minute subs.

Anyway after not long enough, the power tank ran dry. I've really got to get the mains power sorted out.

After stacking and processing, here's the image.

It really needs a lot more time, but I'm pleased with it.

Working on Bodes' Cigar

2009-03-20T16:30:00.002Z

I've been trying to lift out more info on the M81/M82 image, but despite several restacks and a lot or processing, I've not managed to do anything further except a lighten.

I'm hoping to get a load more data tonight, see if I can get a bunch of 3 minute subs instead of 2.

A cigar for bodes ?

2009-03-19T07:44:00.002Z

Another clear night. I carted out the HEQ5 and followed my normal setup routine, and checked focus on Alnitak. I decided last night to have ago at M81 and M82. So before trying to find them this time, I rechecked my information. It took me a while to work out how to point the EQ mount at them, first off, I lined up, checked in my 24x80 finder and could see the grey haze, fired a test shot and yep, the Cigar was indeed there. It occured to me, that the position of the mount, with the scope moving down and the counter weight up, probably wasn't the best option, although by far the easiest to find them. So I slewed the mount around, and worked my way in to find them on the other side. I really struggled to get underneath enough and to get the scopes pointing in the right direction, but I got there in the end, but use of a camping mat and lying underneath it. Then a few tweaks for framing, a couple of test shots to check exposure times, yep up to 2 minutes at least. I decided 2 minutes and lots of subs rather than pushing too far on the sub length.

I took a few dark frames, set the timer remote for 30x2minutes and let it get on with it. When that was complete I took a few more dark frames, and set it all going again, this time aiming for 45 subs. Unfortunatly after only 29 subs the power gave up on me. I can't wait to get proper mains power in the garden. I took some more darks, then flats, and bought all the kit back in.

I popped all the frames in the stack, and set the dark multiplication factor. After reading some info yesterday about dark scaling, as long as you have bias shots, you can scale shorter darks up to the image shot duration, so taking 30s darks and multiplying by 4 in DSS. This was my first time trying this and it seems to have worked well. This of course means that 4 darks take the same time to capture as a single light frame meaning more time is spent capturing real data, cool.

Anyway, this is a first edit and needs some more work, but by the time I was done with the stack I was a bit tired to do much more.

59 x 120s @ISO800, 21 darks, 21 flats and 23 bias frames, log sqrt stretch in DSS then tweaked in PS

The arms in Bodes were much clearer in PS last night, not sure what's happened there...

I also added the Bias frames to a restack of my M3 shot from the other night... so here's the reedit

The kit is working well and I'm happy with the data collection capabilities. I need to finish off the EQmod cable, and get guiding running, then I'll be well away.

Phew It works

2009-03-17T01:17:00.002Z

Another clear night. Another opportunity to check things out and see if I've still got the problem. During the day I'd found a couple of things wrong. Firstly, the head mount bolt was a little looser than necessary which mean the HEQ5 head wasn't tightly connected to the tripod head. Not a good thing, but not enough for it to fall off. I also found that one of the piggyback mounting nuts was loose, the addition of a spring washer and tightening it down solved that. So, all looking good fingers crossed.

I carted all the gear out, levelled using the Ambubble, set the PA setting circles, powered up and polar aligned. I also rigged up part of my camera safety fittings just in case. I need to work out a way of setting this up better, but I'm sure this would have worked if needed. I swung the mount using the clutches to point at Orions belt, and used the slew controls to centre Alnitak, then used this to focus, then balanced the mount. I decided then, that I'd go for a target I can find easily, so headed off to find The Beehive in Cancer. I used the 24x80 (Konus + 17mm Hyperion) finder and had a good look at the beehive, centred it in the camera viewfinder, removed the Hyperion, and took a test shot. 60 seconds was good, no trailing. 90 seconds also no trailing. Phew. I figured 90 seconds at ISO800 would do nicely, set the timer remote and let it do it's stuff. I had to gently apply the hair dryer a couple of times, but as dew was only just beginning to form on the lens, I was able to clear it in under the 10 seconds of the interval my timer remote is set for.

Whilst I was setting this up, at about 20:27, I saw something shoot across the sky, west to east at about Zenith. Far to fast for a Satellite.

I got out the 15x70's and had a little nose around. M44, had a look for M67, and I think I found it. M42. Then swung around, and following the instructions in TL@O I had a look for M3. I found it easily.

Once I'd captured my M44 data, changed camera battery and completed darks and flats. I swapped SD Card and unmounted the Frac combo, and mounted the Skymax 102 instead. It had been suggested on AC, that the little Mak would be very good with the 450d on a Globular cluster, and given where M3 was sitting, figured it was worth a go.

So I fitted the camera with the CLS filter, I'm not sure this was truly necessary with this setup, and will probably try this again without it. Focused using Saturn, grabbed a test shot, and was quite surprised at the result, considering this is a mammoth crop of a single frame

I set the timer remote for 60 second exposures @ISo1600 and went into to process the M44 data.

Whist the stack was running, I hadn't realised, but the power pack had run nearly flat, so the mount had stopped tracking. Oh Goody. This meant I only got 14 useable subs of M3. It looks like I'm limited to only 4 hours with the Maplin power tank. Maybe this is a dodgy battery, or a damaged battery, I don't know. So I grabbed the darks and flats, and cleared up.

After stacking the M44 data, I stretched the histogram with LogSqrt in DSS and tweaked a little in PS

The M3 data was also processed, but there were not enough lights. I also had some oddities when I used 7 flats with Vignetting going in the other direction, and a green colour cast, not had this before with the CLS after stacking.

I had a restack and used only 3 flats instead and that seems to have helped. I've also been able to remove the colour cast with tweaking.

The M3 data really needs more work in processing, but these are just a couple of quick rough edits, so I'll spend more time on it later. I'm glad everything is now working as I expected, and I've found what I hope is the cause.

Horrible nights

2009-03-15T23:47:00.002Z

Saturday night, whilst supposedly clear, and yes I could see a few stars, like Sirius, was murky overhead to the point that Sirius looked like a faded out spot, not the brightest star in the night sky... Well actually, I suppose it was still the brightest star in the night sky, after all it was about the only one I could see.

Tonight, after starting out the same way, finally cleared properly around 2230. I grabbed the HEQ5 and setup. I have a new ambubble level, so used that to level the mount off. Set the date/time circle on the polar scope and polar aligned. I used Saturn to focus on, when the rings are a lovely flat line at 10x on liveview, it's there. Balanced the mount. Then set off to find M67. Well I found M44 ok, using the clutches to point to the right patch of sky, then used the control to slew to M67, a few minutes and a couple of test shots later and no sign... Then it twigs, I went the wrong way... Ok. I came back in and grabbed the 25mm celestron ep. Popped it in the Konus diagonal and used that as a finder. Still nothing. This is silly. Anyway, I thought to myself, enough is enough.

So I headed off to look for the Leo Triplet. After a little time alinging on the right point in the sky, I took a test shot. 90 Seconds and the stars are trailing. What's going on ? This is the first time I've had trailing below 2.5 minutes. I checked and re polar aligned. Then as I was looking in that direction anyway, went looking for M81 and M82. Couldn't find them. I went back to the triplet, and I think this time I got the right place, but I'm still getting trailing at 90s. The mount is pretty level, given that the last time I got out, I didn't even bother to level and got 2.5 minutes I don't get this. Anyway by this point, I'd been outside over an hour, I'm feeling frozen, I've achieved nothing but frustration and some clouds were lurking around the North. I gave up, cleared up and came in.

Whether this is because of my little cable test with the USB TTL cable for guiding or not I just don't know. I completed the cable and tested it yesterday. All seemed to work ok, the mount responded as I was expecting, and I could control it happily from my PC. I plugged the handset back in and could slew happily too.

I did notice an odd vibration noise from the scope whilst the mount was tracking, I think the tube must have been amplifying it, and slewing at speed seemed noisier tonight. I don't know what's going on.

A couple more moons and a go at Saturn

2009-03-11T22:25:00.003Z

Last night, was again clear, very surprising that was. I started out, with a quick shot with the Skymax 102 on the camera tripod

I couldn't resist colouring it

I then set the camera to jpg, continuous shooting and locked the shutter release remote. some 60 odd frames later I stopped it. I stacked the 61 frames and came out with

I little later on, the moon was higher, and the sky was still clear, I took the NexStar Skymax SLT out and set that up. I tried a few AVI's on the moon with the SPC900, but there's not enough contrast in them to stack properly. I had a go at Saturn, firstly just the webcam in the Skymax

Then had a try with the Ultima Barlow.

The blue lines are back, and it's got to be the gain causing it. I had to push up the gain. Anyway, considering how rubbish the seeing was lsat night, seeing the rings of Saturn was tricket it was that bad, I'm really rather pleased with these.

More Mooning around and a first Saturn of the year

2009-03-10T00:17:00.005Z

Sunday was a real mixed bag of weather. Sunny, cloudy, rainy. There was a brief clear spell in the early evening, and once again, I popped the Skymax on my camera tripod, the 450d at prime and grabbed a shot of the moon against the blue sky.

The clear gap didn't last and within the hour it was raining again.

Anyway, as I was getting ready for bed, checking doors etc, I saw the sky had cleared so I grabbed the Skymax on the NexStar and dashed out for a short session. I used the webcam to capture a few sequences. Having messed up the alignment... The moonwash across the sky confused me, and I aligned on totally the wrong thing, the tracking was not as good as it can be, so the AVI's were quite short.

First up Aristarchus 231 of 256 frames

I pulled out a bit of colour too

Then I moved onto Gassendi 481 of 703 frames

I decided I'd have a pop at Saturn, this is all 274 frames

I'm not sure what caused the diagonal lines, the only thing I can think of, was I had the gain on the webcam up quite high. I've got some work to do on this, my laptop screen is always very dim when running on battery and that's making my job much harder to get the settings and focus right.

Anyway, thanks to CW on SGL, I've found a way to remove the lines, run a small Gaussian blur on it..

I also finally managed to get my frames from the 450d stacked into a 3 pane terminator mosaic. This was shot using the 2xTC on the 450d at prime on the Skymax. I had to convert the RAW frames to jpg before Registax 5 would play ball with them, it's still in Beta release though, so hopefully this will work better once fully released.

I really like the Skymax, it's working great for me.