Partial eclipse of the Sun 29th March 2006... other bits

Partial eclipse of the Sun 29th March 2006

Using C9.25, 35mm EP & Canon A620 camera

Cassini image - March 2006

Saturns rings imaged by Cassini.

Saturn 22nd March

Wow! it's clear... well clear'ish, first time for bleeding ages. I took about half a dozen videos of Saturn, but when I processed them, they all exhibited a strange mis-align on one side of the rings.
I went out 2 hours later and them imaged these. Not that great, but it was very misty and the gain had to be increased quite a bit on the Toucam. These are all 2 x barlow, I couldn't use anything higher because it wasn't bright enough... Saturn that is.
I think the scope needed time to cool down. I normally have the scope covered by a blanket and a nylon cover. When I took it off, I don't think the scope was fully cooled down for the earlier images. During the day, the 'shed' observatory seems to heat up a lot. I may need to spray/paint the clear roof :-( more expense.

Here's a picture of the scope in action on the night (we don't need no stinking dew shield). As you can see from the scope position, Saturn was just coming up to the Meridian and running up against the buffers so to speak, doh! as per normal, switch the scope over.

The Sun 19th March

Toucam Pro image























Close-up of image below.














Using Canon Powershot through 35 mm EP and yellow filter.

Worden's catena - Orbiter IV view

Moon 15th March

Canon Powershot A620

Moon 9th & 10th March

Copernicus 9th March

Various from 6th March Moon.

Apollo 17 landing site; Taurus Littrow











Posidonius











Theophilus

Various from 5th March Moon.

Apollo 17 landing site; Taurus Littrow









Posidonius











Theophilus










Fabricius

Vallis Rheita

Three image mosaic, 2 x Barlow.

Messier A & B

The Moon 3rd March

Taken at prime focus, 15 images stitched together using Paintshop Pro.





Mare Crisium detail from mosaic.

Saturn 2nd March

Been changing the gamma settings to try and bring out the D-Ring.
Misty seeing tonight.
Here is a single frame from the video of the top image. You wouldn't believe that you could get anything out of it, just goes to show.

The Moon 2nd March

This version is made up of a mosaic of 11 images captured at prime focus.
Inverted.

Saturn 1st Mar. ...later

The seeing got better later on; both 3000 frame AVI's, 2 x Barlow.






















3000 frame AVI, 4 x Imagemate with Barlow extension tube

Saturn 1st Mar.

3000 frame AVI, Toucam, 2 x Barlow and #12 deep yellow filter, which is why some of the colours are a bit naff.

Lovely clear night, but the seeing is not very good. That's my excuse and I'm sticking by it!

Not as windy/gusty as last night but very cold though, me little heater from Wickes is working overtime.
My thermometer from my office is off-scale low!!!

Saturn 28th Feb

Very gusty tonight.

New Guider

Here's a picture of my new Auto Guide Port controller. Exciting isn't it?
I used push to make switches and a small plastic case from Maplins. The green button is up. The cable was from an old fax machine ( has to be RJ12, 6 pins).
I chopped off the BT plug and wired to the switches as per Nexstar Resource site instructions, then plugged it into the guide port.
It works like a dream. The lead is long enough so that I can have the controller right by my laptop, so for planetery imaging at the 1x speed it's perfect.

Saturns rings

While waiting for the rain to stop and skies to clear, here is a nice Cassini view of Saturns rings that I found on the web.


















PIA07873

Saturn 20th Feb.

The sky is clear tonight apart from the odd cloud, but there is wind and therefore bad seeing.

Saturns moons on 18th Feb.

Here are some of Saturns moons shown alongside an image of Saturn captured at prime focus. The bright moon is Titan.

Saturn 18th Feb. later

Managed to capture these before the fog really rolled in... it's a real pea souper now.

Re-processed images from 17th Feb.

Saturn 18th Feb. early morning

Later on the seeing was not as good.

Saturn 17th Feb

Better seeing tonight.