A new view of the moon

Recording video from the DSLR is by no means new technology. Indeed most intermediate and top end cameras now employ full HD recording. Though my poor old 40D does not have such a luxurious feature. Many full moons ago I owned a 300D and I found a programme that allowed video recording, provided you do a hack to the firmware, Having read several posts from disgruntled owners I thought better of it and stuck to the Phillips TOUcam the original egg shaped model I might add. (For sale if anyone wants it) for my lunar and planetary fun. Used with my Orion Optics 10" reflector then. Having moved onto to the refractor and the wonderful wield field images it produces the moon soon became an annoyance rather than the orb of beauty it is. So recently I was trawling the popular social network site and saw an advert to cheap DSLR's a few clicks and some disappointment later I saw an advert for LIVE VIEW recording. No firmware hacks just a simple programme to install and connect to the DSLR. To test it I had set the camera up on a tripod facing outside. Open live view and your pic appears on the screen. Leaving the camera lens on auto focus allows you to tweak it using the controls on the laptop. Pressed record and bingo a very high quality recording. This is the part that really got me though!!!. I zoomed the lens onto a flower and hit the 5x magnifcation button on the programme to adjust the focus once happy I pressed record again leaving it set to zoom. I played back the video expecting to see the full frame but no I had an amazing video form 5x mag from the live view. The recording was about 20fps and incredible. You would think I worked for the company or getting a commission for the programme sales by now. But sadly no as it is free. I immediatly thought that through my modest 90mm refractor and additional help in magnification would be a bonus. A break in the clouds a few nights ago allowed me to test. Here are the results. Camera set to manual 200iso and 1/160th sec exposure. I have a 2" barlow for the close ups. Each video was about a minute and Registax processed around a thousand frames each time. Nothing more added than a wavelet sharpen. Link to the programme can be found here.  http://sourceforge.net/projects/eos-movrec/

An old favourite

After studying M13 through your telescope, imagine now the sky as from deep within the cluster. We would see uncountable numbers of blazing stars, many as bright or brighter than our naked eye planets. Inhabitants on a planet inside M13 would probably know nothing of the Galaxy and other galaxies, as their view would be completely blocked by the brilliance of their own skies. To them, the Great Cluster in Hercules would be "the Universe".

I wanted to try a few exposures at a low Iso and see how well the processing would keep noise to a minimum. The sky has remained very dark as the DDP stretch in Images Plus increased and teased out more detail. I wanted to capture more detail in the core, under saturating the chip at 400 ISO has worked well. Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker this is only 10 x 2 minute guided exposures. (This time I remembered to refocus after the alignment setup)

If it wasn't for bad luck

       I would have no luck at all. Is how the saying goes. Mystic Malc predicted a couple of weeks ago that we would indeed have a good week of clear skies last week. So we did, BUT I was not going to see any of them. Last monday to this Sunday inclusive was my first set of  nights on the night shift this year. Here continueth the run of bad luck.
      So if we skip back to last May I dismantled my observatory and packed everything away while we moved and of course missed Sn2011dh in M51 last June. Whilst I was building the new observatory last September I missed sn2011fe in M101.
      On the 23rd of Feb this year I imaged a wide field inc M95

and of course saw no Supernova See pic.Tonight is my first night at home again and guess what the clouds have rolled in. Am I destined to miss every Supernova.




To continue the run of misfortune. Last night 10/4/12 saw a reasonably clear. Google said the clear sky wouldn't last so I hastily set up and focussed on a set up star. Here in is where the problem lies M95 was a good 60 degrees across the sky and I completly forgot to refocus. Looks like a tenth of a mm out. But the good news is I have managed to get my first image of the sn2012aw.