Andromeda Revisited

A revisit to the great Andromeda spiral galaxy on thursday took another 40 minutes worth of images including some 5 minute guided. About 60 minutes worth of darks subtracted aswell. Have had a play withe the processing to get a more pleasing colour. I dont think there was enough detail on shorter exposures on the previous image. Now i think it has become a great deal smoother. I do have a stock of flats and bias frames, so I may be back with another. I do have a few issues with coma however so I have cropped as best I can Let me know what you think.





Object: The Great Andromeda Galaxy
Type: Galaxy
Constellation: Andromeda
Date: 24th - 25th September 09 11.40 01.40am
Equipment: William Optics Megrez 90 Canon EOS 40D guided using 66mm William Optics refractor & Atik 16IC camera.
Subframes: 15 x 1 minute exposures at ISO1600, 4 x 5 minute ISO 1600 and 8 x 2 minute exposures approx 60 mins of darks subtracted
Stacked: by Deep Sky Stacker.
Processed: In Images Plus 3.75 with a DDP stretch.

M31 Andromeda Galaxy

With the new job requiring many hours of my time. I finally had the opportunity go go outside last night. Things didnt go well. I went through the usual processes polar align scope, check balances, focus DSLR, connect guide camera (bugger) I think I have broken it. In connecting it up I power up first as required then tried to plug the USB into the ST4 port I heard an electrical crack sound and immediatly removed the plug connected to the USB socket and nothing. I powered down and reconnected several times but to no avail.

I continued the evening by just taking about 20 x 30 second exposues at ISO 1600. Deep sky stacker co added the images and Images plus has processed with a DDP stretch. Unfortunatly by now I had lost all interest it what I was doing but I this is my first shot of Andromeda so I wanted to post it anyway. I have emailed Atik and awaiting a reply as to what to do with my poorly camera.

Apologies

Hi fellow bloggers.

An apology to make to followers of my blog, The last couple of months have been pretty hectic with our new arrival. Aswell as awaiting conformation of my new job that was finally confirmed to me last week. It has been a long time coming. Now stress levels are beginning to subside i can make efforts into producing some new images. I am hoping for a clear night on the 12th/13th Aug hoping for a good meteor shower. I will Have the Canon piggy backed onto the mount for some nice constellation shots controlled by the laptop, as my 6 year old daughter Erin is going to stay up till midnight with me wrapped up in a sleeping back and pillows in our back garden in Norfolk.I bet she doesnt make it past 10pm I'll let you know how that one turns out.

PS Safe trip home Endeavour.

M27 The Dumbell Nebula

Object: Dumbbell Nebula M27
Type: Planetary Nebula
Constellation: Velpecula
Date: 30 May 09 01.30am
Equipment: William Optics Megrez 90 Canon EOS 40D guided usin 66mm William Optics refractor & Atik 16IC camera.
Subframes: 1 x 8 minute exposures at ISO800, 1 x 8 minute dark, Bias & light frame calibrated
Stacked: by Deep Sky Stacker.
Processed: In Images Plus 3.75 with a DDP stretch.

Notes: This is the first opportunity to guide using my new Atik 16IC camera. I was able to guide using what I estimate to be a 9th Mag star. I am seeing a much better signal to noiseratio by generating a longer exposure rather than 16 x 30 seconds. I look foward to future tests.

Sinus Iridium

I thought I would give the Toucam a last go before I get the DMK ,

Here is a registax stack of 144 frames of the Mare Imbrium region and the distinctive semi-circle known as Sinus Iridium (the so-called "Bay Of Rainbows,"

Auto Guiding works On M57

Before I send my LXD 75 mount for a service I wanted to have a go myself. Stripped & rebuilt, remounted and a perfect polar alignment later. I thought lets put the DSLR on and test PHD as it was tracking very badly (the fault of the mount by the way)and see what I get.
I wanted a target that was nebulous to also put to the test my new Lumicon 2" deep sky filter. Generally considered the best all purpose nebula filter on the market.With a transmission of 486nm Hydrogen-Beta @ 94%, 656nm Hydrogen-Alpha @ 92% & the double ionised lines of Oxygen III of 496nm to 501nm @92%. The Deep Sky Filter also passes infrared light, making it an excellent filter for photographing most deep space objects through light-polluted skies.
Enough of the tech stuff did it work?. The simple answer is the pic above. This Image was a 20 minute Phd guided exposure. My jaw hit the floor as everything performed flawlessly.

Lulin Animation

Lulin Animation

Wow it worked I downloaded a simple AVI creation programme added the files and hey presto Comet Lulin zipping across our skies.
This small animation is from stacking 10 frames and repeated

Fellow Bloggers

A notice to all the bloggers around the world

To all the visitors recent & old to my blog.
I have been up and running now for a year and I am amazed to see all my visitors from around the world. I would like to say a little thank you for your visit and I hope you have enjoyed my attempts at astrophotography. As a thank you I would like to reciprocate and have a look at your web pages if you so have one. Please send me a link to your page via my email malcolmdent@tiscali.co.uk

Please dont forget to have a look at my fellow societies members blogs too they are also producing some amazing shots see their links on the right hand side. I would be happy to add your site aswell.

clear skies to all my friends and thanks

malcolm

Comet Lulin (C/2007 N3)

Object: Comet Lulin (C/2007 N3)
Type: Comet
Constellation: Leo
Date: 1st March 09
Equipment: William Optics Megrez 90 Canon EOS 40D Subframes: 11 x 30 second exposures unguided at ISO1600
Processed: No darks or flats were captured. Processed in Images Plus 3.75 with a small non linear stretch or DDP
Having just given our newborn her midnight bottle and tucked her safely in her crib. I looked out the window.

Guess What I Saw ??

Finally we have had a few hours of clear sky and this was my first view of comet Lulin. I spent 15 minutes or so looking at it through my 26mm 2" meade eyepiece through the 90mm refractor. I couldnt see any colour as in the west south west direction is our local town of Watton (only 3 miles away) and a significant amount of skyglow was creeping higher and higher as the clouds and moisture content increased. .

As Lulin is composed of frozen ice, dust and gases. Cyanogen gas and diatomic carbon present in it, when irradiated by sunlight, make it appear green.

I quickly connected up the camera and for the first time used Images plus 3.75 DSLR control for a series of exposures. This image was taken between 1.50 am and About 2.15 am Several frames removed from stacking as cloud passed by. I stacked them to keep the stars at pinpoint so the comets nucleus looks a little elongated. I also used the windows picture viewer and flicked through all the frames at high speed and it was amazing to see how fast the comet is now now moving across the fixed background stars. If I can find a simple animation programme I will will make an animation of its motion.

I am amazed there was a secondary point of interest here. The tail of the comet has passed across 4 NGC galaxies marked on the frame. The faintest of which is mag 15.00 and I can just confirm its there. Not bad for 5 and a half minutes of exposure.

Not the best pic I have taken by far simply because of the sky quality and all I kept was 11 subs from the 30 or so I had taken, A fraction on the heavy side of processing to see the tail and those 4 galaxies.

For fear of no more clear nights I reflect on another beautiful looking comet and the thought of its journey and possible return in 50 million years time.

God speed comet Lulin.

A new Star

WOW AMAZING

I saw the birth of a new star last night.

Things went supernova from nebulous region in the constellation of the Norfolk & Norwich Hospital at 22.58 UT. It was subsequently named by it co discovers Katie & Malcolm to the name of Daisy Grace Dent. As new born stars go she was a bit of a lightweight at 6lb 7oz but already showing signs of a cavernous black hole at her centre. A rocket trip returned to her to starbase at dawn this morning after a final countdown of nearly 20 hours. All crew members are well and doing fine.

M42 & NGC 1977 Over Processed

This image is the same as the one below but i used some very aggressive processing using images plus 2.5. I have done this to see what info I could tease out from the stacked master image. Personally I like to keep the images clean with realistic dark backgrounds so if anything I am happy to under process to get a more pleasing result. I am certainly no expert in imaging but I enjoy the challenge of having a go.

So what did I do.

well within images plus there is a video file with a set of typical preset adjustments for a M42 found in the file named "deep sky image set" you can copy and paste these settings upon your own image , the processes include Pixel Maths, Digital Development, Brightness & levels, Saturation & brightness.

I wouldnt be happy with this as a final result but what amazes me is that the information is there. I love the way the running man leaps from his own nebula and M42,s wings completely encirle and join hands. No colour adjustments were made & I love to see the true colours shine through.

Please your comments are welcomed what do you think

Rosette Nebula

Object: Rosette Nebula NGC2244, NGC2237
Type: HII Emission Nebula
Constellation: Monoceros
Date: 3rd february 09
Equipment: William Optics Megrez 90 Canon EOS 40D
Subframes: 27 x 30 second exposures unguided at ISO800 & 10 x 30 second darks. No filters were used. Stacked by Deep Sky Stacker.
Processed: In Images Plus 2.0 with a DDP stretch.

Notes: Image taken under moonlit conditions.
NGC2237 is generally the name given to the whole of the nebulous region & NGC2244 is the cluster thats believed to be responsible for the stellar winds from a group of O and B stars are exerting pressure on interstellar clouds that cause compression, this initiates star formation in the nebula. This star formation is currently still ongoing.

Back In Time: At a distance of 5200 light years. It was a time when Unification of the first ancient Egyptian states marked the beginning of the Ancient Egyptian civilization.

M42 The Great Orion Nebula

What an amazing night transparency excelent apart from the 62% moon in the way.

I thought I would have another go at M42. I wasnt happy with the previous posted image, well that was really just a test to get the PHD to work ( still no luck ). Apologies for slightly elongated stars.

Object: M42
Type: Reflection & Emission Nebula 1270 Light Years Distant.
Constellation: Orion
Date: 24th January 09
Equipment: William Optics Megrez 90 Canon EOS 40D
Subframes: 30 x 30 second exposures unguided at ISO800 and
Processed: 10 x 30 sec darks were captured & subtracted. Stacked using Deep Sky Stacker,
Processed in Images Plus 2.0 with a DDP stretch. 10 Iterations on a adaptive Richardson Lucy deconvolution filter.
Notes: This cropped Image was taken under a 62% illuminated moon.

Any exposure over 30 seconds was badly washed with moonlight so I kept it to that and the result is excellent. I also used Deep Sky Stacker programme for the calibration and stacking it was very easy to use and a great deal quicker than manual registration of each image. I used med fine quality JPEG as I have a small problem when I ask it to use RAW even with an empty card the camera says it is full and will not take an image.

Leo Triplet

Object: M65, M66, NGC3628
Type: Galaxy Cluster
Constellation: Leo

Date: 3rd february 09

Equipment: William Optics Megrez 90 Canon EOS 40D

Subframes: 98 x 30 second exposures unguided at ISO800 & 19 x 30 second darks .

Processed: In Images Plus 2.0 with a DDP stretch. 6 Iterations on a adaptive Richardson Lucy deconvolution filter.
Notes: This cropped Image was taken under a 62% illumination from the moon hovering by the pliedies. I will play with the processing a little more I am sure I can tease a little more from the structure from the galaxies.

Back In Time: Light from these 3 started its journey 35 million years or so ago give or take an eon or so.

Occasional killer asteroids could have spawned temporary rings of debris around Earth and played a major role in changing the world climate, according to scientists. Resembling the rocky halos that encircle Saturn, one such terrestrial ring might have chilled the globe considerably about 35 million years ago.
The geologic record indicates that Earth endured a brutal cold spell at the time, possibly sparked by a debris ring that persisted from 100,000 to several million years, the New Mexico researchers said. (courtesy of newsfinder)

Comet Lulin (C/2007 N3)

What might be the best naked-eye comet of the year is approaching the Earth and growing brighter every day. It’s Comet Lulin, named for the Chinese observatory where it was discovered in 2007.

Comet Lulin currently is in the constellation of Virgo passing the star Spica in the next couple of days, rising about 1 a.m., but as we progress through February, the comet will move with pace into the constellations of Virgo and Leo and will rise at the much more reasonable hour of 7 p.m.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Comet Lulin is its unusual orbit around the sun. Although it orbits in nearly the same plane that the Earth does, it does so backwards. Earth and all of the major planets orbit the sun counterclockwise as viewed from above Earth’s North Pole, but Comet Lulin is going against the flow, moving around the sun in a clockwise direction. Because it is moving in the opposite direction that Earth moves, the two will pass each other at the breakneck speed of nearly 40 miles per second, or 140,000 miles per hour.

On the night of closest approach to Earth, Feb. 24, Comet Lulin will be moving at an astounding 5 degrees per day across our line of sight. Its motion against the background stars will be evident through a small telescope or even binoculars. The comet will pass 0.41 Astronomical Units from earth and reach its closest distance to Earth on February 24, about 14.5 times the distance between the Earth and the Moon.

Another fascinating aspect of Comet Lulin’s orbit is that it is parabolic rather than elliptical. That means that Comet Lulin doesn’t make regular, periodic visits to the inner solar system, but it is in an orbit so large that this might be the very first time it has passed through the inner solar system and felt the warmth of the sun on its solidly frozen ices. Consequently, predicting the behavior of this newcomer is speculative at best. So far, it has been at or slightly ahead of its theoretical brightness curve. If this trend continues, Comet Lulin is expected to reach fourth magnitude at its peak. That’s bright enough to be seen with the unaided eye from dark, rural locations.

A pair of ordinary binoculars always enhances your view of a comet, and on the night of closest approach, Feb. 24, Comet Lulin and the bright planet Saturn will be in the same binocular field of view, providing an unforgettable sight.

A soon as possible from my location attempts will be made to photograph this newcomer to our solar system.

Long Live Comet Lulin.

M42 The Great Orion Nebula

Object: M42

Type: Reflection & Emission Nebula 1270 Light Years Distant.

Constellation: Orion

Date: 24th January 09
Equipment: William Optics Megrez 90 Canon EOS 40D
Subframes: 4 x 30 second exposures unguided at ISO800 and

Processed: No darks or flats were captured. Processed in Images Plus 2.0 with a Moderate non linear stretch or DDP. 5 Iterations on a adaptive Richardson Lucy deconvolution filter.

Notes: This cropped Image was taken under heavy light pollution of my neighbouring town of Watton in Norfolk. M42 is the brightest nebula in the night sky buried within Orions sword and is the closest region of star formation.

Back In Time: That means when we look up in the winter sky at the nebula- a star making factory, the light started towards us in the year 739AD... For those of you who are history buffs, that is roughly five years after the death of the Venerable Bede- the monk who wrote the first history of Britain- before the Vikings started plundering their way around Europe!

More Observatory

The weather is cold the skies are certainly not clear so I thought I would take a few pics of the observatory and the inside.

How About a few more pics

Pic 1 Shows the new 120 watt tube heater. The 1st one died.

Pic 2 The laptop connected via underfloor cables.

Pic 3 One of the wheels that rolls the roof.

Pic 4 I have 2 of these bolts holding the roof in place.

Pic 5 The Imaging set up Guider & Canon in place.

The Moon

I have been sifting through images on my observatory laptop and found this lovely image of our closest neighbour.
A few facts

Object: Waning Gibbous 15.4 Day Old Moon
Distance: 231094 Miles

Date: 15th September 08

Equipment: William Optics Megrez 90 Canon EOS 40D Subframes: 1 x 1/8th Second

Notes: Magnitude -12.79. Pictured in the constellation if Pisces.

Bad Weather

Unfortunatly we have had some really luck with the weather recently and I have not done a great deal of photography.

I am In the process of designing a new website which has all my imaging aswell as a detailed construction of my observatory aswell as other things.

I am seeing a good number of visitors from other countries . I would appreciate any comments or suggestions you might have or even just say hello.

M1

Object: Messier 1 (M1, NGC 1952),

Type: Super Nova Remnant

Distance: 6500 Light Years (Approx) Constellation: Taurus
Date: 27th October 08
Equipment: William Optics Megrez 90 Canon EOS 40D
Subframes: 41 x 30 second exposures unguided at ISO800
Processed: No darks or flats were captured. Processed in Images Plus 2.0 with a non linear stretch or DDP. 7

Notes: Observed by a Chinese astronomers on July 4th 1054 AD, the Guest star was seen in daylight for 23 days and visible to the naked eye in the night sky for a staggering 653 nights.

Approx 10 Light years diamater expanding at 1,800 km/sec.

At the center of the nebula lies the Crab Pulsar, a rotating neutron star, which emits pulses of radiation from gamma rays to radio waves with a spin rate of 30.2 times per second. The nebula was the first astronomical object identified with a historical supernova explosion.

I am not entirely happy with this shot a bit more processing perhaps or a new series without frosty optics I really wanted to glimpse the Pulsar.

Back In Time: As the light left M1 we travel back to the year 4493BC. Chronicles suggest early Mesopotamian cultures in present day Iraq and Egyptian civilizations on the Nile. In England the Neolithic period was just commencing and Stonehenge wasn't far off being constructed.

M45 The Pliedies

Object: M45Type: Open Cluster
Distance: 380Light Years (Approx)
Constellation: Taurus

Date: 27th October 08

Equipment: William Optics Megrez 90 Canon EOS 40D

Subframes: 6 x 30 second exposures unguided at ISO800 and 1 x 3.5 Minute Autoguided exposure again at 800 ISO

Processed: No darks or flats were captured. Processed in Images Plus 2.0 with a Moderate non linear stretch or DDP. 7 Iterations on a adaptive Richardson Lucy deconvolution filter.

Notes: The Pleiades nebulae are blue-colored, which indicates that they are reflection nebulae, reflecting the light of the bright stars situated near (or within) them.

Back In Time: As the light left back in 1627, back on earth a Dutch ship sighted the coast of southern Australia, while the English were colonising the island of Barbados. An earthquake devastated southern Italy and astronomer Johannes Keppler published his laws on planetary motion The Rudolphine Times

Phd guiding test

03/10/08

This has been the first opportunity to test the rebuilt mount.

The above image is cropped and FOV approx 40' x 30' This is a 5 minute phd guided exposure.

Ignoring the flare around the Maia. There was an great deal of moisture in the air. The aim of the test was to get the guiding working. It passed with flying colours.

Get a load of this

ASTRONOMER:

When you rearrange the letters:

MOON STARER

Does anyone know any more that are astro related??

See if this works

Well this week saw rain rain rain here in Norfolk. So time to try something. A complete dismantle ,clean and rebuild of my LXD 75 mount. I cannot seem to get PHD to guide with my setup. The mount is Balanced the scopes are tight , but I did notice the Dec mount seemed a little stiffer than the RA. Maybe here lies the problem. Everything seemed to go ok it is definatly smoother than it was so I will wait till the stars shine to test. Its now Sat 5th Sept and we still have rain so polar aligning and testing will have to wait. Watch This Space

Double Cluster In perseus

Object: NGC884 & 889

Type: Open Clusters

Distance: 7300Light Years

Constellation: Perseus

Date: 30th August 08

Equipment: William Optics Megrez 90 Canon EOS 40D
Subframes: 19 x 30 second exposures unguided at ISO1600
Processed: No darks or flats were captured. Processed in Images Plus 2.0 with a Moderate non linear stretch or DDP.
Notes: Well for a few hours last night it was clear. Transparency good So I rolled back the roof and took a few images.

Having problems with PHD it just wanders off after about 20 seconds

Eclipse of the century, Solar Eclipse 09 , Amateur astronomy, Astronomy Norfolk. Xrays. Solar system. Radiation, Galaxies. Nebula. Globular clusters. Moon ionised gas. Nasa. Deep space . Astrophotography. Breckland Astronomical society. Venus. mars. saturn. neptune. uranus. pluto.
jupiter. satellite. comets. dark matter. super nova. canon DLSR. canon eos 40d astronomy. william optics. orion optics. celestron. skywatcher telescope. registax. schmidt-cassegrain . long exposure. hubble. magnitude . space science. nebulae. stacked exposures. ip blocking filter. ha filters. o111 filter. red, green . blue.

Persied Meteor Through Andromeda

After a couple of hours at our Great Ellingham observatory. We saw 4 or 5 meteors.

Came home and set up the Canon EOS40d on a tripod and connected the remote shooting software. I cought this fine meteor at 00.43 13/8/08. You will notice it perfectly disects the Andromeda galaxy.

30 second image ISO1000 Delicatly processed by Barnfield Bob (thanks Bob)

M27 The Dumbell Nebula

This is the first image from my new Canon EOS40d DSLR
A 30 second exposure ISO 1600 through a Celestron 9.25" Schmidt-Cassegrain with XLT coatings.
STUNNING STUNNING STUNNING what more can I say.
This image is unprocessed. I cant wait to stack a couple of dozen images.

M81 & M82

I took this image at approx 1.20 am Tues 20th May 2008 with a near full moon in the sky.

This is a small stack of 8 x 30 second exposures combined and processed using Images Plus 2.0

Taken through William Optics 90mm Megrez refractor and Canon EOS300d

M13 The Great Hercules Cluster

Monday 5th May.

An historic day. My finished observatory has seen first light and to celebrate the event I pulled an all nighter ( well Very nearly).

The first target was M13 in the constelation in Hercules. I was initially happy to spend the evening just being able to achieve focus and get everything working. Having achieved this reasonably quickly I set about some imaging.

28 x 30 second unguided exposures using

Canon EOS300D / William Optics Megrez 90mm refractor / Processed Using Images Plus 2.0

I am very pleased with this first attempt.

Your comments are appreciated.

Rebuild Of Roof Structure

Its been a long wait. A measurement error made by me on the internal measurements of the observatory meant that the scope when facing south hit the door of the observatory.

Two options available to me were rebuild the structure or the more favourable raise the scope.

Option two was the preferred choice,

I needed to raise the scope by 14" to allow the counterweight arm to miss the door frame.

I did not have any more of the tubing so I upended a bucket and added some concrete to raise by the appropriate amount. cut some more M12 bar to accept the mounting plate.

The more difficult task was to raise the roof. Again I could completely rebuild a new roof or raise the existing. Due to many factors such as work commitments, WEATHER, I opted for the raise.

I had booked a week off work for this week to do the job.

I had asked 3 members of Breckland AS to lend a hand . Very kindly Barrie Sherrington, Mike Butcher and Gerald North, said yes and to them I am grateful for their help and advice on the the day.

In preparation I had build a framework for the roof to rest upon and eagerly awaited their arrival. Luck prevailed and the weather was fine. So we lifted the roof off and removed the wheels lifted and tested the new framework in place (all OK it fitted perfectly) Reattached the wheels and lifted the roof onto its new home.

The next couple of days were dodging rain and cladding and doing.

As the photo's show the roof is taller than originally wanted but it does mean the scopes do not have to be removed after an imaging session.

Mercury Transit

Mercury Transit 7th May 2003

The transit or passage of a planet across the face of the Sun is a relatively rare occurrence. As seen from Earth, only transits of Mercury and Venus are possible. On the average, there are 13 transits of Mercury each century.

On Wednesday, 2003 May 07, We were indeed treated to another transit of a lifetime when Mercury's transit of the Sun was seen for the first time since 1999. The entire event was widely visible from the Europe, Africa and Asia,. Japan Australia, and New Zealand and witnessed the beginning of the transit but the Sun had set before the event ended. Similarly, observers in western Africa, eastern North America and eastern South America saw the end of the event since the transit will already be in progress at sunrise from those regions. But luckily here in the UK we were treated to a cloud free entire transit.

Lightning

Lightning at Saham Toney

Me and my 5 year old daughter love to watch a good thunder storm we sit under the porch and watch the lightning steak across the sky.

Saham Sunset

Saham Toney Sunset.

This is again a favourite image of mine A wonderful sunset Using a canon 300mm zoom Lens on the EOS300d. A 1 second exposure was enough to capture an amazing sky colour.

Vega Spectrum

Vega Spectrum

I love this image. This is the light spectrum of the star Vega. Taken on the societies 20" with a home made Diffraction Grating. (you know what we used Gerald) ha ha!!.

A 5 second exposure using a Canon EOS300d DSLR.

Deep Sky M13

M13 The Great Hercules Globular Cluster.

This Image was Taken through The 10" Orion Optics reflector at principle focus with a Canon EOS300d DSLR. A stack of 6 x 30 Second exposures stacked in Images Plus V2

This as my first attempt a deep sky Imaging.

Comet Holmes

Comet Holmes

Here we have an image of Comet Holmes.
I was testing the camera on the societies 20" reflector. I have not quite achieved perfect focus. But this 20 second image has given a pleasing pic.

Solar

As this is a new site for me I have found a few of the nice images I have taken in the past.

Here are a couple of my Images from the Venus Transit of 8th June 2004.

On this beautifully clear summer morning we experienced a once-in-a-lifetime rare astrological and astronomical event. Approximately every 121 years, the planet Venus moves between the Sun and our line of vision so that Venus passes directly across the face of the Sun. When the Moon passes across the face of the Sun it's called an eclipse. When a planet passes across the Sun's face it's more precisely known as an occultation.

Telescope used was my 10" Orion Optics F4.8 reflector on a Vixen Polaris GP mount.

I used a baader solar filter on the scope and a yellow filter over the camera lens.

I was very pleased with the results.

Lunar

Lunar Eclipse March 3rd 2007

I purchased a Skywatcher Ed80 at Astrofest in the feb of 2007 and its first serious task was the lunar eclipse. This image was taken with the ED80 and a Canon Eos300d. Image was taken at 400 Iso at 4 seconds.

I am very pleased with the colouration on the South Eastern Limb a wonderful copper colour.

Observatory

I like many of my fellow members of Breckland Astronomical Society have a great deal of kit that needs careful setup and aligning, before you can even contemplate taking a picture. Here is where the dilemma begins.

Dilemma 1 ..To find a practical and easy solution to minimise set up procedure.

Dilemma no 2.. I have a small back garden with a garden shed & my daughters Wendy house and we didn't want another shed losing even more space.

The solution was to have something as small as possible just to house the scopes for imaging.
as my observing is generally done at our Society's Great Ellingham observatory I didn't mind and was happy to compromise on a small observatory.
The conclusion as then to build a purpose built roll on roll off roof shed. I have no experience with fibreglass to consider a dome,
so this was the easier option as all the work will be done by myself.

Observatory

The observatory would be small I planned a 5 foot x 3 foot in size just enough
to house the scopes. I first dug a nice deep hole for the pier, and cemented in the corners using concrete blocks. Mixer kindly loaned by and transported by family.

For the pier I used a piece of 10" industrial drainage tube it was buried into
the ground by just over 2 and half feet. I reinforced the hole with re bar.

The pier is completely isolated from the shed so free from vibration, you will soon see I have a custom made platform for the mount which I also use on a Steel pillar that is concrete mounted
at Great Ellingham.

The framework for the observatory was made with treated 3 x 2 clad then with OSB board after being filled with polystyrene then finally shiplap was clad on the the outside.

I designed a roll off roof structure that again I built myself again cladding and felt to complete.

Hello Fellow Bloggers.
I have created this site for the purpose of sharing my interest in astronomy with the world.