Copernicus from 26th Jan 2010

Here's Copernicus from a the other week, I've just got around to processing it.

Above was processed with Registax and below Avistack.

Mars 31st Jan 2010

Too many clouds tonight, just one quick Mars image.

Mare Crisium.

Mars 30th Jan 2010

Very cold again last night but clear throughout. The seeing was quite strange, very high frequency shimmering is the only way I can explain it.
I also cleaned my corrector plate before the session, that was fun in the freezing cold, trouble is I've got some stuff on the other-side of the glass as well. So I'll have to dismantle it completely and deal with that at a later date.
I checked the collimation as well, but since the seeing wasn't that great it's very difficult to tell.
This image was taken at the end of the session, I used my usual 5x Powermate with the filter wheel on the end of it, I also used a barlow extension tube to give it a bit more mag.

Here's a short video showing the type of seeing, 5x Powermate through IR filter, SKYnyx 2-0M.

As you can see Registax does an amazing job.

Mars at opposition 29th Jan 2010

The seeing wasn't that great last night for the opposition, but at least it was clear.
Really cold though, my legs were freezing by the time I'd finished, started imaging at 8:40 and finished just before midnight... brrrrr!

And here's a none filtered b/w.

Hainzel, J. Herschel, Letronne & Schiller craters.

Long live Spirit.

Gassendi & Herigonius area.

Here's another area that is very interesting... love that rille.

Clavius & Tycho 26th Jan 2010

Bit misty tonight and it got worse, but it's nice to get out and image.

Mars 23rd Jan 2010

Quick! it's clear.
Mars is almost at opposition, so it better clear up.
Average seeing, IR, Synth Green, Blue. Using 5x Powermate.

Couldn't get rid of the horrible edge artifact :-(

THE INTERLUDE... One of these days it's gonna stop snowing.

... in the meantime here's a video of my favourite band at their peak:-

The Who perform at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, Bethel, N.Y., U.S., Aug. 16, 1969

Mars 9th Jan 2010

Slightly better seeing tonight, transparency wasn't very good though. Mars was very high which probably helped with the seeing.
These are IR, synth Green, Blue images.
The same as last night, I managed a few captures and then it clouded over.

Mars from 7th Jan 2010

Very cold in the UK last night. Some places in Scotland were down to -21C.
Lowest Night Min: Benson (Berkshire): -17.7C about 20 miles away. (from BBC weather)

This image was taken using an IR and Blue filter, combined to produce a synthetic Green. (3000 frames per channel, using the best 1000 processed in Registax).
It was the best from the night, I didn't want to stay out too long as I was worried that the PC might get frosty and blow up! Plus it clouded over just as this finished and I certainly wasn't going to hang around in sub zero temperatures :-\



















That's Syrtis Major Planitia to the left just coming round the corner; see this

STS-129 Ascent Highlights

This is a nice piece of editing. I love the way those solid rocket boosters plunge into the ocean.

Credit: ReelNASA
Space shuttle Atlantis ascent highlights from the STS-129 mission to the International Space Station.

Mars 3rd Jan 2010

Mars from a very cold last night. The two on the left are using the 5x TV Powermate and the one on the right has a small extension tube to boost the image size.
Using C9.25 and RGB filters with an IR filter as the lum channel.
The seeing was average, but later it was worse.

The seeing got steadily worse later, so I packed up, just as well I was frozen!

As an off topic aside, I went to work today and was going around a very gentle bend in the road at about 20mph and my BMW did a complete 180 degree turn on some black ice!. Luckily there were no other cars around at the time. :-0

Mars quickly processed... more tomorrow.

The Times Atlas of the Moon... bargain.

Found this today in an old book shop in Wantage for £3.50. The Times atlas of the Moon... bargain (do a search on the net).

It is in fact a reduced-scale and bound reprint of the Lunar Aeronautical Charts produced by the UCAC in the 1960's.

Here's Clavius crater from the previous post.

I got published!

A nice start to the new year. I got a picture of Clavius published in this months Sky & Telescope magazine.

Thanks to Charles Wood and THE-MOON WIKI.

It was LPOD 12th Oct 2009.

Moonlight becomes you...

It never ceases to amaze me just how bright a full Moon can be.

50Mbps ISP upgrade.

I've just upgraded my ISP package to the Virgin 50Mbps. Seems to work OK.
The slinky black box is the cable modem, with the wireless N (300Mbps) router at the back and my 1Gbps switch sitting on top. The 1Gbps switch links to the PC in my observatory and allows me to Dameware and connect super fast from my study.

OT: Avebury Stones

We went to Avebury yesterday (just down the road for us) to take some pictures of the stones, here's a couple of them. The Moon's in one of them so it's not too off topic ;-)
Canon EOS 50D and 17-200mm lens.

Tycho 27th Dec 2009

Taken with 3 x TV Barlow and Baader IR filter, with SKYnyx 2-0m camera.
The seeing was average.

Mars 27th dec 2009

Went out last night to image Mars and managed to capture some stuff, although the seeing and conditions weren't up to much. There seems to be a lot of dew recently.

I went out on the 24th as well but had to stop because everything was totally dewed over. The scope, mount, filters and camera. It was getting a bit dangerous and I was scared that the computer might blow up!.

This image was taken with LRGB and 5 x Powermate with an extension tube, Mars is still really small :-(

Merry Christmas and happy new year readers & followers.

Thanks for looking.

Old Mars from 2007

Still sorting through some of my old Mars data and re-processing... to keep my hand in :-)

The night of the planets.

It's cold... but clear!!
Haven't been out for ages, so I thought I'd try and bag a few planets.
Boy I tell you what, Neptune is faint, had to pull out all the stops to image that. With the camera running at full gain & aperture, and that was at prime focus.
Coming a bit closer was Uranus, which I could a least image with a 2.5x Powermate and RGB filters.
And then we have Jupiter with a nice Callisto transit right in the middle ;-) Taken with LRGB filters, 5x Powermate & at prime focus. Very low on the horizon.

I was hoping to get a really good Mars image tonight, but this is all I could manage, and now it's started to snow! Grrr.

Boulder rolling in the Alpine Valley.

An amazing set of boulder tracks from the LROC in the Alpine Valley area of the Moon.

And the start of the Alpine Valley:-

Credit LROC

Funny........ 42.

Live Webcast From McMoon's

Watch this USTREAM video. These people are doing a fantastic job at recovering Lunar Orbiter images from tapes that are over 40 years old in an abandoned McDonald's restaurant.

Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project Overview from SpaceRef on Vimeo.

Credit Moonviews

Mars movie from 2005

The seeing was better in the good old days!
I've been looking through some of my old videos and came across this small piece, that was taken with my 'point and shoot camera' at the eyepiece of the scope!
I don't even remember doing this, I must have been experimenting.

I've cropped the frame down from 640 x 480, but the size of the disk is about the same as the original.

27th Oct. 2005.

BTW: I only started imaging in Sept. 2005 ;-)

Horsehead & Flame nebula in IR.

This image, the first to be released publicly from VISTA, the world’s largest survey telescope, shows the spectacular star-forming region known as the Flame Nebula, or NGC 2024, in the constellation of Orion.
Slightly tweaked by me in CS4.

Credit ESO

The CFHT Legacy Survey Deep Field image.

Wow! if you thought the HST deep field image was amazing... look at this baby!
From the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey Deep Field #1. Using the "Megacam", a giant 36-CCD camera mounted at prime focus on the 3.6 meter telescope on top of Mauna Kea.

Half a million galaxies!

Terapix Data Centre. (It's just like my server room at work)

Here is the larger version at half resolution of the original Megacam image, beware it's 10Mb.

Credit TERAPIX & CFHT

New Study Adds to Finding of Ancient Life Signs in Mars Meteorite.

They've been looking at that rock again:-

Looks good, doesn't it?

Here's the PDF:-
Origins of magnetite nanocrystals in Martian meteorite ALH84001

Hubble's Deepest View of Universe Unveils Never-Before-Seen Galaxies

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has made the deepest image of the universe ever taken in near-infrared light.

Credit NASA
... and some nice music to go with it by Tyler Rix.

Langrenus to Petavius 3rd Dec 2009

Long Plato shadows.

From the 25th Nov 2009 session.

Mars 5th Dec 2009

It's early (in the morning), it's clear (in between the clouds)... and it's Mars!

5 x TV Powermate, RGB, SKYnyx 2-0M, C9.25.

The transparency along with the seeing was not very good, with gusty winds.

Below; enlarged 150% and colour tweaked.
You can just make out Elysium Mons the white smudge on the right close to the terminator.

Below is a CalSky ref.

5 minutes after taking this image, it started to rain... that's unusual!!

Clavius & Tycho - 25th Nov 2009

Rush.

Lucam Recorder test with SKYnyx 2-0M

Thought I'd try some different settings on the s/w that I use to control my SKYnyx 2-0M.
See the results below.
As you can see high gain and low exposure seem to offer the best image detail.




Not a very scientific test. I took around 1000 frames and processed each in Registax to the same wavelets. With a single 128 align box in the centre of the crater.

Basic rule now - whoop the gain up.

M42 re-processed for last year.