Saturday, December 17, 2005

The Moon 16th Dec. 23:58 UTC

Taken with Pentax 750z camera at 32mm EP on my C9.25.

Saturn 17th Dec.

Alhazen


Condorcet West


Sunday, December 11, 2005

Tycho 11th Dec.



















World Wind simulation using Clementine data.
http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/

Copernicus 11th Dec.



Montes Recti and Alpine Valley


Fra Mauro - Apollo 14 Landing Site

Plato 10th Dec 2005

Ptolemaeus, Alphonsus, Arzachel and Rupes Recta

3 images stitched together.
2XBarlow lens.

Clavius

4 images stitched together.
Images taken with 3XBarlow lens.

Hyginus Rille closer

The Straight Wall




Tycho


Three views of Copernicus 10th dec.





Top; 21:24 UTC, Best 40% of 623 frames, Fair seeing.

Middle; 20:30 UTC, Best 40% of 630 frames, Fair seeing.

Bottom; 21:02 UTC, Best 40% of 535 frames, Fair seeing.

Apollo 15 Landing site.. best yet

Friday, December 09, 2005

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

Mars 6th Dec.

Had a few good nights recently here in Wiltshire. These are all taken using a Celestron red #25 filter, using a Tele Vue 3X Barlow (nicked from my mate Ray, while I've got all his gear round my house at present ;-))
They are the best 300 odd frames taken from about 1500. The seeing got better later on, although there was fog/mist in the air.

Saturn and it's moons












I don't seem to get the same colours as everyone else when I image Saturn.
This is my Toucam Pro without any filters, and hardly any processing... any ideas anyone?

Monday, December 05, 2005

Mars 5th Dec.

Sunday, December 04, 2005

Star pattern from collimating

Mars 4th Dec.

Saturday, December 03, 2005

Bob's Knobs

I just got a set of Bob's Knobs from the States.
I managed to install them in about two minutes, by pointing the scope down, and taking out and replacing one screw at a time.
I then roughly collimated by standing about 5 feet from the scope and looking with one eye until the mirrors were straight. As per instructions from 'Bob'.
I've just been out tonight to do a more precise collimate. First thing... it wasn't far out anyway, but! using Bob's Knobs is a dream. I know that you are not supposed to use a diagonal. But with it, I managed to collimate by just looking through the EP and twiddling the 'Knobs'. It was bloody great. You can tell precisely how tight the screws are, and can get a real feel for it.
It's gone cloudy now, so I wasn't able to finish the job, but it should be piss easy from now on.

Thanks Damian Peach for the suggestion.

http://www.damianpeach.com/

and Bob for the knobs.

http://www.bobsknobs.com/

Palus Somnii (The Marsh of Sleep)

















http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/apollo/frame/?AS15-M-0962
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/mapcatalog/LAC/lac61/
http://astrogeology.usgs.gov/lo-cgi-bin/frameListPage.pl?mission=4&frame=066