Saturday, December 17, 2005

The Moon 16th Dec. 23:58 UTC

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

Sunday, December 11, 2005

Clavius

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

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.

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

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/

Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Wednesday, November 23, 2005