Mu cephei

I have had another go at the Garnet star (Mu Cephei) Far left and associated nebulosity IC 1396. This time using the UHC filter. I never usually over process an image, but I have gone a little overboard this time just to see what is there. 5 minutes shy of 2 hours has revealed some deep stuff. I am very pleased with star shapes using 5 minute guided subs. I want to try the same 2 hours without the filter now.

Polar Alignment.

I can say I have never been perfectly happy with my polar alignment of my set up. Don't get me wrong it has never been out by more that a gnats bits. But sometimes that is enough to send the mount into a spin. I have moaned a few times about PHD and the Dec tracking, it just seemed to go haywire. The graph plot was up and down worse than the UK economy. So frustrating at times, I could never manage exposures more than 2 minutes at best. I had come to accept this and sat and watched patiently many times as a hundred or so short exposure  images aligned and stacked together. However  I recently came across a programme that Bob http://www.rsamuel.me.uk/astroblog/called Alignmaster. http://www.alignmaster.de/  had used. A clever little programme by Matthias Garzaroll. I wont bother explaining the ins and outs you can see from it's homepage the process and how simple it is. A trial version is activated by a registration key sent via email. After the small adjustments I made, I made on it's recommendation a second alignment to increase accuracy and within 10 minutes I was done. I tightened up all loose screws and made sure nothing had moved. I sent the goto to Mu Cephei and began PHD. After its set up all was well as the star remained central. I like to use the graph function to see where / when  errors are creeping in. I left the observatory for a while and returned 10 minutes later to see the graph had not deviated a pixel's width the entire time. I was amazed to see the difference. The Canon was already connected to balance up the system. So i fired off a couple of 10 minute exposures and was truly amazed at the result. I would have done more but the following day was my first day back after my 18 days holiday with a 7.30 am start. By now it was gone midnight. Before you call me an astronomical lightweight. We have suffered a bit from jet lag.
It looks like I will have to start a new library of darks too now. Here is the result of just 2 x 10 minute exposures tweaked of course in Images plus. I am eager to get back outside and see what 3-4 hours worth of 10 minute subs can deliver.Watch this space.

Dominican Republic

I have included a few sunrise, sunset pics in the past. Here are a few of my favourites from our recent holiday in the Dominican Republic.It was unfortunate that the evening skies were hazy. So I never got the chance to see Sagittarius high in the south.

Planetary Alignment

We had a night flight travelling home from our holiday in the Dominican Republic last week. Our seats were nicely positioned to get a view and a snapshot of the Alignment of Mercury, Venus & Jupiter. Sorry it's a bit shakey. The best one I could get travelling at 500mph. Taken over the Atlantic ocean 700 miles East of Bermuda at approx 35,000 ft.