Freindly Bino view

There were some gaps in the clouds yesterday evening, and a friend and I had a few minutes out with the 15x70's. The Seven Sisters were strutting gloriously across the heavens in their inimitable fashion, so we spent some time looking there, a look at Mirfak for the association, and the Hyades. All this in the gaps between the clouds. It wasn't a long session, but my friend was astonished at the numbers of stars visible in the bins.

Running man past the birdie

Or, capture M42, M43 and the running man...

Orion was just clearing the roofline when the clouds parted and cleared off. Even though it was quite late, I decided I needed to know if my corrective actions had worked and whether I was going to hit all sorts of tracking errors again or not. I setup, levelled, aligned on Betelguese. Waited a couple of minutes and took a 90 second shot. Spot on. No noticeable trailing, no tracking errors from the mount. Phew... I used the goto to slew to M42 and left it for 10 minutes to allow M42 to clear the roof line. I figured that rather than waste the time, I'd shoot my flats and flat darks so did that as usual.

Using the time remote, I captured a sequence of frames varying from 2 seconds for the trap to 45 seconds. Total time 875 seconds or 14.5 minutes. Captured with darks (only 10 of each, should really have gone for 15) and a total number of useable frames of 47. Only lost 3 to trailing and one to tracking errors. Orion is sadly too far south for longer exposures by the time it's cleared the roofline, and trailing becomes a significant issue.

Anyway, I threw the whole lot of frames into the DSS mixer, set to blend and left it to it. Then used PS to stretch and tweak resulted in



Ok, I've blown the trap, I wasn't sure how that was going to come out, but I will stack the short subs to pull out that detail and try and merge them together in PS. It's also a little noisy, I think for ISO1600 I really need more dark subs. However, I'm really pleased with this result, but will revisit to see how much further refinement I can achieve.

A couple of the moon today

Nothing doing last night. To much cloud around, not enough gaps. I couldn't be bothered setting up, so I went out for a beer instead. However, this morning, clear, bright, blue skies and the last quarter moon hanging there. I grabbed a couple of shots...

The first is the moon on it's own...



The second, I spotted the vapour trail heading in the right direction for a close pass, and grabbed the camera just in time...

Pulling my hair out

What a mare last tonight. My double flare was spoilt by clouds. The planets shots were all poor... looks like some movement in the camera, I'd probably have done better hand holding it. This is the best one




Since "balancing the scope" I'm getting tracking errors at only 30 seconds.... Never mind any longer. I shot a bunch of subs of M42 tonight, and only 1 x 2 minute sub it usable. Anyway, suffice it to say, that to top it off, the clouds moved in around then. I've put everything back how it was and I just hope that's cured it.

Anyway, here's the image from the single 2 minute frame. Not done much with it to be honest... The green tint is the CLS filter, that the DSS stack normally removes.



However, the high point of the night, whilst I was trying to work out what was causing my tracking errors at about 2220, and waiting for an exposure to finish, I glanced around and saw a fireball shoot across the sky. It was heading sort of from the Pleiades towards the South West ish, the track ran across about 40 to 50 degrees of the sky, and I watched it break up and disintegrate leaving behind a trail in the air that dissipated quickly.

I've done it again

I managed to get another image on the S@N cover disk. I can't quite believe it, but two in a row. This time it was my double flare shot.

Clear Sky... Nearly

Last night, after another grim and grey day, the sky actually cleared. I managed to get a handheld shot of the moon, although it was a little misty.



I went inside to do a couple of things, and checked again a few minutes later, and yep, the cloud was back with a vengeance. I'd been planning on setting up the bins, to show my OH the Pleiades, to see if I could at least engender a little appreciation for the wonders of the night skies, as opposed to looking online at pics. And hopefully grabbing a stack of M42/43, but this wasn't to be.

Shooting the Moon

A couple of shots of the moon in gaps in the clouds from the previous nights.





A clear night yesterday, and the Moon was nearly full. I got out and grabbed a shot with the camera and 55-250 lens handheld earlier on



I got the scope out later, levelled, powered up and aligned on the moon, then on to use the webcam to try and capture the lunar surface closer up. I had a real headache getting everything setup. I couldn't remember the tubing required on the focusser to allow me to get focus, I couldn't get the right settings in wxastrocapture to enable to get a reasonable preview on screen. After about 50 minutes of faffing I managed to get the right combination of tubes and settings and there she was on screen. Phew.

Then onto focussing. Well, that was another major headache. Whilst the drawtube no longer moves up and down (there's still a little play visible when using the 5x barlow, but not enough to be a problem) there's no fine tuning and getting precise focus is tough, add in poor conditions and it was horrible. After yet more faffing I finally got it as close as I was going to, and started capturing.

I ran off a bunch of avi's. Firstly at 800mm on Aristarchus, then at 400mm to capture four sets (although it ended up being 5 due to drift) and compose as a mosaic, then a final 800mm on the terminator.

Time passed whilst all this capturing was going on. I then swapped out the webcam for the 450d, using the OM mount 2xTC to get some image scale, and the 10x preview on liveview. Focusing was really hard thanks to the conditions, I've had it much easier to focus the moon before in this config. Anyway, here's the not great result



I started trying to process the AVI's this morning, and followed my previous routine for processing them. Went through, clicked on the option to debayer (RAW modded webcam) and the picture on screen turned to mush. It didn't matter what options I tried it did the same thing. I then tried aviraw to convert and that showed exactly the same symptoms. I stacked the image anyway, using single point, I still can't get multipoint to produce anything other than broken segments, and adjusted in wavelets. The image still shows the Bayer matrix pattern across it, but it did work.



I ended up comparing my old config to the new one, and found that the capture format was set to RGB24 on the new machine and YUV420 on the old. I reckon this is the problem. I don't know if all the AVI's are wasted or whether I can find something that will debayer them for me, but the hunt is on.

I saw the sky

The clouds actually parted on and off today. I was surprised as the forecast was supposed to be rubbish. Anyway, I saw the moon rising quite early on, early enough for the sky to still look light blue.



Having checked on HA, and found a flare prediction at -4, I grabbed the SatCatcher and decided to go for it. 20 minutes before the prediction, the sky was clear, 10 minutes before, rain, then a couple of minutes before it cleared. I dashed out setup and caught it. The flare didn't reach -4 though.... and it looks like I must have mucked something up on the SatCatcher whilst is was in storage...




The moon was now higher and against a dark sky...



A little later, after another band of cloud had passed through, the sky was once again clear. I grabbed the scope and all the paraphenalia and setup. A quick align on the moon, popped in the webcam with the 5x barlow, attempted to focus... hmm nothing... I looked up and the clouds were back in force again... so I packed up. I've still got to test this setup out. Hopefully soon.

Visit to the Adur Astronomy Society

I managed to get along to my first meeting of the Adur Astro Society last night. Bit of a rush to get there on time, but what isn't nowdays . I must say, a very friendly and welcoming bunch indeed.

Robin kicked off with a welcome, before handing over to Ed, who provided a useful run through of some of the better and easier to find visual objects, in a video he'd prepared earlier and giving insights and on screen computer generated images into the expected views that one can expect.

Ed, handed over to Steve, who followed with a similar presentation, this time, concentrating on imaging targets for the coming month, accompanied with images he had prepared to show the sorts of results that could be achieved.

Then back to Ed again for a detailed look at some astronomical filters. Discussing what each filter could/should be used for, how they enhance the viewing experience and what can be expected to be seen using them.

After tea and cakes (Cracking carrot cakes, made be Leanne I think )
the floor was opened to members to present where they were at and advice could be sought. Robin, also ran through a presentation, with details of his gear and results from the various cameras.

Bern from Modern Astronomy was also there with an interesting looking array of equipment. I'm sad to say that I steered well clear, the CFO would have shot me had I gone near, cos I would probably have ended up buying something... (Sorry Bern )

Trev did a sterling job in the background, providing technical support (I think it was his laptop in use) and tea duties .

Thanks Robin, Ed, Trev and Steve for the work and effort put in to organise the evening, a very useful and enjoyable evening out, just a shame the weather is back to it's dismal usual self again.

Light Pollution

A challenge was laid down on AstroChat last night to compare light pollution around the country. Here's my shots for the comparison. As you can tell the cloud pixies had it in for me last night

Looking towards Gatwick Airport


Looking away


I think these also go to show how much difference the Astronomik CLS filter I use for my imaging makes.

Last nights near disaster

Well, it started out clear, at 1930, so kids in bed, I lugged out the scope, powerpack, and went to fetch the camera. Having carefully fitted the CLS filter to the nosepiece, I removed the 55-250 lens, started to fit the T adapter, and watched as my prized and most used lens fell, in slow motion, crashing to the floor . I gingerly picked it up, half expecting bits of glass to come spitting out the end. Thankfully, the body didn't even appear marked, so I put the caps back on and securely put it back in the bag. Went back out, attached the camera and started the power up and align (I figured in true mastermind style, I'd started so I'd finish). Anyway, as I was slewing to Mirfak, the clouds moved in, in force. I packed up again. Shame as I could, before the clouds moved in, faintly see the ribbon of the milky way passing overhead.

After all was back inside, I popped the 55-250 lens back on and started testing. I've done more testing this morning, and it appears to have survived unscathed. Phew...

A word of caution... Make sure everything is secure before moving onto something else...

Having captured a shot this morning with the dropped lens, through the kitchen window, I can safely say it's working fine.

More subs M45 and M33

Twas a clear night on Friday, but we had visitors early on. Once they had left, I setup the scope on the grass, levelled and powered up. I used my usual one star align on Mirfak, and the 450d Liveview zoom mode to align. Centered and clicked the Align, and watched Mirfak drift up the screen. I thought nothing of it, although I should have twigged straight away, and used the goto to slew to M45, nicely in view over the houses. I left everything for a few minutes to settle down after the slew as normal. Came back, and tried some test shots. This is odd... I was getting trailing after only 15 seconds. I did a few more tests and yep, still happening. Then it occured to me, the view of Mirfak sailing up the screen. Damn. Powered down, and started again. Checked the level, that was fine, Made double sure of the date and time... Yep, correcty entered, aligned on Mirfak. Again it drifted up the screen. What is going on here. I pulled the power this time and considered trying a full SkyAlign. I decided to give it one more go, and this was better.

Having finally got to M45, I setup the timer remote for 99x90s and set it running. After no more than 30 subs, I had to stop the data collection and apply the hairdryer to remove the dew. I started the data collection again. After another 40 subs or so, my OH decided she wanted a bath, turned on the bathroom light and that scuppered my plans for M45 as the Sisters were sitting too near my bathroom window. Nothing like some induced LP from your own house. I set about taking darks, flats and flat darks.

Having completed that, the bathroom light gone off, I procedded to gather yet more M45 data. After about another 20 subs, I checked the images and noticed they were getting darker. I stopped once again and cleared the dew. Then checked an image in closeup. The last few all trailed. Damn. Ah well, I slewed to M33 to get some more data there. I left it for a few minutes to settle and setup for a bunch of 60 second subs. After about 40 minutes, I checked and the camera had hung and the dew had got so bad that the filters in the OTA had misted up. I gave up. So I bought everything in and waited for it all to dry out. The camera, once the battery was charged up, appears to be working fine, and has taken plenty of normal pictures since.

The data was stacked in DSS with the previous set of captured subs, and after much labourious tweaking in PS, this seemed much harder, maybe it was the double set of subs or something I don't know, I ended up with ...

M45


M33, NGC1907, IC471 and Mr Smiley


They have worked, but the amount of effort to process these seemed excessive. I don't know if a better approach would be to stack each set of frames individually and then stack the resulting stacks or something else entirely that I've not found yet.

Improving M52 and the Bubble

On Oct 22nd, I managed to get out for an hour. Good job my normal setup routine doesn't take long as clouds stopped play after that short a time. However, I was able to grab another 52x45 seconds subs of this area, and got the framing a bit better. I used DSS to stack all 132 frames, with Darks, Flats and Dark Flats, then processed in PS. This time I didn't double the unadjusted with the DSS adjusted, and only used the unadjusted.



I can't believe how much info is in the resulting image, given how bare the unadjusted DSS save is...

The images from Oct 21st

First up, as Cassie is high in the sky was M52. I grabbed 80x30 seconds, darks, flats and dark flats. But I managed to get something wrong with the darks... Typical. Anyway I went ahead and stacked the subs anyway, and was surprised to find that I'd caught the Bubble Nebula. I then saved the resulting image with DSS adjustements embedded. I then tweaked the DSS adjustements to pull out more stars and saved that too. For some reason the DSS tweaks always lose colour and I end up with a B&W image. I loaded both images into PS and after making some adjustments to both, layered them as a Colour layer and tweaked a bit more. I processed both the combined and the non adjusted one and saved both. I thought the bubble looked better in the non adjusted one.

The combined image


The non DSS adjusted one


I then slewed around to grab some data on M45 as the sisters had now cleared the roof. I setup for 90x60s and fired away. I went to stack these, again with darks (correct ones), flats and dark flats, and I was going to include the 60 or so frames I'd captured previously. Only when I went to the image archive, the archive was bare. Not a sign of the M45 data.... NO... My bad, I must have deleted them to save space GRRR.. Ah well. Processed as the M52 once the stack was completed. The scope dew'ed up on me mid way through and I had to stop to use the OH's hair dryer.



Finally, Auriga had cleared the roof, so I slewed across to M38 and repeated. I had been intending on getting a load of subs. I used the hairdryer before starting, and within 25 minutes, the objective was dewed up again. Anyway, processed in the same way.



I gave up at that point, but the scope had been out capturing data for 4 hours, and I had a lot of data to process.