Full Moon 24th August 2010

The Moon tonight - 23rd August 2010

Nearly full Moon tonight; Takahashi with flattener and Canon 50D, single shot 1/2000, ISO 100, processed in DPP.

The Bubble Nebula and M52 18th August 2010

Had about an hour of clear'ish sky last night, so I thought I'd image something different for a change. The Bubble Nebula NGC 7635.
49x 1min at 800ISO, darks, flats & bias applied.

Star trails from 18th August 2010

Nice star trails from the other nights meteor hunt. (Shame about the gap, I had to take out a few frames due to clouds) 2hours 40mins worth.
I used Chris Schur's superb Photoshop action.

Jupiter 16th Aug 2010 IIRGB

3x TV Barlow:-

2.5x TV Powermate:-

Perseids meteor group photo.

A composite of all the meteors taken from 230 x 30sec frames last night (about 2hours).
I make it seven.

Perseids meteor shower.

Spent about 4 hours out last night on and off, with the camera piggy backed to the Takahashi, which was piggy backed to the C9.25. Taking 30sec exposures with a few seconds time lapse.
Initial scan through the images is that I've picked about 5 shots of meteors... but I have some wonderful clouds!

First Perseid meteor tonight.

Larger M31 from the 11th Aug.

I also tweaked the colour.

M31 11th Aug 2010

You'll never believe it! it was clear last night. First time we've had a solidly clear night for ages. So I thought I'd waste my time imaging M31 yet again. Although Actually this is the first time with my new setup, ie. camera/tak config.
Here is 115 one minute subs, with darks, flats and bias.
Processed in Deep Sky Stacker and CS4 with the help of Noels tools and some very useful actions that I found on Cloudy Nights over the years.
BTW I saw about half a dozen Perseids meteors as well

M31 starless from 2009

Been messing with M31 again and produced another version minus most of the stars in our galaxy.

Jupiter 5th Aug 2010 IRRGB

You can just about see Oval BA in the bottom right just going out of view.

Jupiter, Ganymede & Io 3rd Aug 2010

Jupiter in IR 3rd Aug 2010

Jupiter this morning in IR, with Ganymede & IO, left & right.

Venus this evening 31st July 2010

Jupiter & Ganymede 30th July 2010 IRRGB

The seeing and transparency were not very good last night, but I managed to get something.

Jupiter & Ganymede in IR 30th July 2010

Quick post from the observatory whilst waiting for the clouds to give way :-\

Jupiter 28th July 2010 - GRS

Jupiter moon Ganymede 28th July 2010

Ganymede was quite a way out from Jupiter, so I imaged it separately.
Ganymede is the largest natural satellite in the Solar System at 5262 kilometers in diameter, larger than the planet Mercury.

Below is Ganymede from the JPL simulator

Jupiter IRRGB - 28th July 2010

GRS just coming around bottom left.

Jupiter 28th July 2010

Jupiter this morning in IR.

LROC NAC mosaic of Bhabha crater and its central peaks

Image details.


Credit NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University

M106 re-processed.

Going over old data and re-processing for something to do in these cloudy nights.
This is a tricky one to process... they all are! because I think the exposure wasn't quite correct, bit too dark. The histogram needed to be a bit more to the right.

M31 tweaked.

As there haven't been any clear nights for ages, I decided to tweak my M31 that I re-processed the other day.

M31 rising again.

Here's my M31 from last year, re-processed yet again. Hope to improve this year ;-)
Now that I have the camera config sorted with the SKY-90.

3D Anaglyph: Cerberus Fossae

Gotta see this!
A 3D anaglyph composed of two Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter images taken within the Cerberus Fossae region.

Credit: NASA / JPL / MSSS

Lutetia closest approach images from Rosetta

Couldn't resist playing with these a bit. In CS4; high pass filtering, Smart sharpen, Shadows and highlights.

Credit ESA

Noctilucent Clouds 9th July 2010

Some nice Noctilucent clouds over Swindon tonight. First I've seen this year.

3 in 1

Three planets in one night, Venus, Saturn and Mars. 3x TV Barlow, IR filter & SKYnyx. All taken just after 8:30 in a blue sky.

Jupiter & Ganymede 26th June 2010 RGB & LRGB

RGB and LRGB using the IR in the luminance channel (LAB mode in CS4).

Jupiter 28th June 2010

Fairly good seeing again this morning, although there were some high altitude clouds getting in the way occasionally. And my corrector fogged over with dew just after this shot, time to break out the old hair dryer.

Below RRGB with aggressive sharpening.

Jupiter 27th June 2010

Good seeing early this morning, although Jupiter is still quite low.

3x TV Barlow

IR Luminance channel for above

Next two below; 2.5x Powermate


3x TV Barlow

4x Imagemate

Excuses, excuses.

Sorry for the lack of imaging, but I'm recovering from an illness and a bit immobile at the moment.

I'll be back very soon.

In the meantime here's a good charity to donate to.

Cheers Mick.

NASA Team Captures Hayabusa Spacecraft Reentry

This is like pure science fiction.
Look at what these guys have been up to! some people get all the good jobs.

Also a nice report by Emily from The Planetary Society Blog.

Credit: JAXA

Latest flash spotted on Jupiter.

Superb work by Anthony Wesley and Christopher Go.
Below image credit Anthony Wesley.

On CN and BBC.

Venus... with some cloud detail!

Managed to capture some cloud detail on Venus tonight, at last!!

Saturn 4th June 2010

The seeing wasn't good enough to push the magnification any higher. So here's a little'un taken with my 2.5x Powermate.

M57 & M13- 3rd June 2010

30x10sec per colour. Plus 10x10sec darks.
Just messing about, it's too light to do anything serious!

M13 40x10sec no filters.