Goodbye Old Friend

OK a dodgy title when you are not even a year old, but I have been bitten, and bitten bad by a bug. I have been more than happy too as I have worked this way for 30 plus years of imaging with various formats of equipment from film cameras, DSLR's, CCD & CMOS cameras.

What the hell is he on about I hear you say?? Ok so I have been looking to upgrade and venture into the world of the Mono chip sensor for a long while. I have been looking at thousands of amazing images and watched 100's of You tube videos on the benefits and the improvements in sensitivity and quality etc . I have long known these facts but like many imagers out there have chosen the colour route for many reasons and I too fit into probably all of those categories and reasons why and even made that decision last year again when I purchased the ZWO ASI 294MC pro cooled CMOS colour camera. I was and I am still bowled over at the quality of the sensor and the images it produces. Most of which are showcased in my posts here. But yesterday I couriered it to it's new home in London. It may have even passed by the new one along the A14 near Cambridge as it headed south.

Along this journey of discovery I had pretty much decided that I would go for the ZWO ASI 1600mm. An older model but a trusted favourite by many astronomers. The perfect entry for me I thought. I am big fan of ZWO since my first high frame rate camera for lunar imaging quite a few years ago now and a perfect match to my ASI AIR pro mini computer.

This morning though a new toy arrived at my door. A complete u-turn from what I thought I was going to order. 

So today I say hello to the ZWO ASI 2600 MM Pro. Unfortunately I will wait for a filter wheel and filters so for a while, I think I will enjoy the incredible specification of 16 bit ADC, 14 stops of dynamic range,  zero amp glow and a whopping 26MP sensor. It is impossible to ignore specs like these and purchase what effectively be an out of date camera like the 1600, 

Time is currently 20.32 and so far clear outside so maybe first light will be tonight fingers crossed.

First light will be the first target I shot with the 294mc pro last year so IC1396 the Elephants trunk nebula it will be,

Below is that first light image from the 294 and desaturated to mono. Watch this space 

I will desaturate the image too not that it will be a fair comparison against the mono camera.

Double Rainbow

 A wonderful double rainbow graced our Norfolk skies today. Alexanders dark band captured too.

Nova Her 2021

Thank you Chris Bailey a fellow member of Breckland Astronomical Society for sharing the link yesterday of a new Nova found in the constellation of Hercules. Just 9 hours 9 minutes later I was imaging this myself. Spot the odd one out?, ok a little help then. Not the cataclysmic event of the type 1a Supernova exploding, this one appears to be a white dwarf star swallowing some extra material and brightening considerable in a very short time.

30 x 2 minutes frames captured from 22.03 last night from my home observatory using my Skywatcher Ed100 triplet, ZWO ASI294mc pro, ASI Air pro.

M101 The Whirlpool Galaxy

I dread galaxy season fearing I can never do it justice using a 100mm F5.5 refractor. However come summer I am never too disappointed and the collection of targets from the spring skies, This particular night a couple of months ago now I remember the east / southern  sky was very patchy and galaxies there were going to be a challenge, so I aimed near vertical and collected 295 minutes of light on M101. Definitely under processed as there is a lot more faint structure to tease out. 

I used my goto astro survey software Cartes du Ceil and fund several dozen 21st Mag galaxies. NGc5474 does not look to shabby either.

Juno

 The dark is a lonely place.

Since the formation of the solar system some 4 billion years ago, millions upon millions of rocks or asteroids are caught in an endless dance in orbit between Mars & Jupiter. 99.9% are no bigger than a London bus but some just some are a little larger.

Travelling at 18km per second I managed to capture movement of approx 32,000km during 30 minutes worth of exposure last night of the 320km asteroid 3 Juno. You can see from the cropped image the elongated shape due to the movement over that time. I have created a little repeating animation of the 15 frames to show the movement.

Juno was the 3rd asteroid discovered in 1804 and believed to be about the 10th largest in size.

https://theskylive.com/3dsolarsystem