Persied Meteor 2010

     We have spent the last few days down in Yeovil, Somerset visiting family far away from the clear skies of Norfolk.
     We all had a wonderful day at Longleat safari park too as I watched the skies clear above us on the drive back. The plan was to just sit the camera on the tripod and shoot from the back garden. A few test shots revealed a lovely orange sky. I decided there and then to get away. About 6 miles from Yeovil is a beautiful and reasonable dark site on top of Ham hill in Stoke Sub Hamden. I arrived at 11.30 pm to a car park full of meteor watchers. I found a quiet corner and started to shoot. We had an amazing view to the south Sagittarius was easily visible as the teapot sank below the hill and the milky way arched across the entire sky. Most of the cars disappeared about midnight and left me and another chap clicking away and chatting. We saw some amazing meteors that left a trails of smoke for sometimes 15 seconds after but annoyingly never in the direction of where our cameras we pointed. However I did capture this one flashing through Camelopardalis at 01:16:56 again leaving a trail of smoke behind it. I did capture about 30 others but none as bright as this one.

Cant decide if its worth sending to one of our publications.

In a galaxy far far away

I was saying the other night to a fellow member at our societies observatory that I shall spend the rest of the summer taking obscure faint fuzzies as most of the big and bright objects have been covered. Then Barry says well there is always room for improvement. True I said especially as I now have the field flattener so I think it may be the time to improve on a few of the objects previously imaged and cropped considerably because of coma. I was going to image the Cocoon nebula last night then realised that imaging at the near verticle will cause the camera to hit the mount. I could see the Andromeda galaxy naked eye well above the neighbours rooftop so I thought yeah lets have ago. Seven seconds later I was focused and set up a run of 90 pics. I didnt bother firing up the guider as I have no problems with 60 second exposures when facing east.

Comparing it to the previous image a bit further down the blog I am very pleased that there has been no cropping and a greater depth of focus has returned a very pleasing result.

Object: M31 The Andromeda Galaxy


Type: Galaxy

Constellation: Pegasus

Instrument: William Optics Megrez 90mm, William Optics MkIII field flattener.

F/stop: 5.52

Exposure: 1 hour 23 minutes

IS0: 1600

Date: 05/06/Aug/2010

Location: Saham Toney Norfolk.
Enhancement: Images Plus 3.82 DDP stretch and 3 Sharpening iterations.

NGC 7000 With UHC Filter

Hi everyone,

I am enjoying my 3 weeks off 1 down 2 to go Daddy day care is fun!!(most of the time) although last night was the first night outside since last Saturday. First off I have solved the little mystery of the failure of guide camera and dew heaters. The power supply / charger for the power tank had broken. So each time I thought I was charging nothing happened and of course the voltage dropped below usable and caused equipment failure. All working fine now.

Went out at about 9.00 pm to test the bahtinov mask kindly supplied by fellow member and manufacturer of these fine items. Made to a professional standard with precise laser cutting of the material providing extremely sharp focus spikes to allow quick and easy focus. Less than 10 seconds I think. Please see Keiths page on my list of fellow bloggers and get ordering they are worth every reasonably priced penny.

This time I thought I would complete my little task of taking NGC7000 again this time with the UHC filter in place. I was very pleased with the result showing the true colour of the Hydrogen Alpha line emissions.

This stack is of 38 X 1 minute unguided subs with no dark calibration / flats or bias frames used.
Stacked in deep sky stacker and a DDP stretch in Images Plus. No additional colour enhacement but I will have a play and if its worthy of posting I will let you see in due course. Let me know what you think comments are always welcome.