Astromick: January 2008

Thursday, January 31, 2008

Mars 31st Jan 2008

Really windy here tonight, getting dangerous outside. Just managed to squeeze this one out, the seeing wasn't that great though.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Mercury in Colour - from Messenger.

Slightly enhanced by me in PSP; Clarify twice, Auto-enhance saturation, Gaussian Blur sharpened, Resized to 40% and then sharpened. Credit

Mars 30th Jan 2008

Thought I'd try my 3x Tele-Vue Barlow on Mars for a change (sorry Rob), with an extension tube. By the time I stuck the DMK on the end the whole thing was over a foot long :-0

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Saturn 29th Jan 2008 2.5x Powermate image finished.

Saturn 2.5x TV Powermate work in progress

Time for bed...yyaaaawwwnnn!

Saturn 29th Jan 2008

Wasn't supposed to be clear tonight, so say BBC weather... Oh well.
This has been reduced by 20% to sharpen it a bit.

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Mars 27th Jan 2008... later

Ha Ho!... went in for dinner, after which, the seeing got a bit better. Clouded over now :-(

Mars 27th Jan 2008

Still fairly low in the sky, seeing did get worse after taking this image though.

Saturday, January 26, 2008

Seeing was fairly good tonight, gusty weather though. The blue and green avi's were better than the two reds (Wratten #25 red {luminace} & Astronomic red). Saturn still seems a long way away.
I've just finished processing this, it's 2:39 in the morning and I can hear birds outside waking up!!

Monday, January 21, 2008

Mars 21st Jan 2008

I'm amazed I even got this, very windy and rainy in the UK at present.

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Various Mars red filter images 16th Jan 2008

Seeing was very foggy and there wasn't enough light to capture any good RGB images.

Mars 17th Jan 2008

Long exposure Serial-Port cable for Canon EOS 400D

I've just built this serial-port cable based on an idea by Michael A. Covington, it works a treat. I can now do long exposures remotely from my PC indoors.

The software that I'm using to control the camera comes from Stark-Labs, and is called DSLR Shutter (see screenshot below), it's brilliant.

All the parts were bought from my local Maplin store.

Friday, January 18, 2008

Mercury as MESSENGER Approached.

Mercury on January 14, 2008, from the spacecraft’s Wide Angle Camera.

Credit

Monday, January 14, 2008

Larger Bodes

Saturday, January 12, 2008

M81, Bodes Galaxy

111 subs, a total of over 55mins exposure at ISO1600.

Hubble view below to scale:-

Don't panic! Huge gas cloud heading our way.

M81 capturing... remotely.

Here's a view of my desktop whilst capturing M81. Using the EOS remote utility (with timer) on my PC in the observatory, Dameware to connect remotely and Deepskystacker Live on my main PC indoors stacking the images on the fly... to see what I've got.
And I'm in the warm ;-)

C9.25, Prime Focus, Canon EOS 400D, unguided.

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

M81... first half hearted attempt

I'm quite pleased with this.
I thought I'd have a go at a classic spiral galaxy, so I tried Messier 81 (M81, NGC 3031) in Ursa Major.
The clouds were beginning to roll in so I quickly found it using the Celestron 'Precise GOTO' technique, and it was bang on. This part of the sky for me is pointing towards Swindon town centre and suffers from light pollution, so I just rattled off a half dozen 30sec 1600ISO subs, which was all I had time for. The subs didn't look that good, so I wasn't expecting too much from them.

But I've just processed them using dark, flats and biases from my M1 Crab Nebula session (should've done some on the night but I couldn't be arsed). I was amazed how well it turned out, all things considered.

I'll dispense with the focal reducer next time and see if I can push it up to 1 minute subs without guiding, and do a range of ISO's with some proper darks etc. ;-)

Six subs, what a camera!

Here's a nice Hubble view.