The sky at Night.

I can finally tick off appearing on The sky at night tv programme from my bucket list. I was lucky enough to have my image of the Horsehead nebula appear with myself and Pete Lawrence on the programme. The interview involved 2 pieces to camera with a number of questions asked. Final edit and broadcast was reduced to about 30 seconds. As mentioned before this is the second time the team has visited Breckland AS. An open invite was given to return if we can offer anymore future programmes.

Star trails

Star trails from Saham Hills observatory

 

 

The last time I imaged star trails was with my old Olympus OM1 film camera back in Somerset.

I have seen a few really nice compositions on various Facebook pages using a free programme

http://www.startrails.de/html/software.html .A very simple programme to use. Take the images load into programme and select the trail type and go. In a short while you have a fantastic pic like this.

 

 The sequence is 150 x 40 second images from the Canon 40D and 18-85 IS USM lens @18mm Iso 400.
Capture started at 21.22 hence the deep blue sky. The bright star at bottom right is Vega rising. I am sure I will be posting many more of these before the year is out.



New Life in an old focuser

I tested a replacement focuser for the 110mm unfortunately it doesn't fit due to the 4" fitting on the 110. Having removed the existing I decided to have one more bash at trying to get the darn thing moving. I have the technical diagram for the focuser and decided to adjust the bolts that state should only be adjusted by an engineer. What the heck it's busted so what's the worst I can do. Fix it!!!!!

So 20 minutes later I have a reasonably smooth movement going, readjusted the tension to take the weight of the field flattener and camera. On it went and bingo it worked in both directions. I don't think I want to remove the camera ever again.......

A rebalance of the scopes was required to bring back the Starlight camera back into operation. 
A lovely flat field test has resulted in sharp round stars at the edges of the frame too. I took 40 sky flats and created a decent master. Dark frames also captured for a full calibration. I like to use a median setting in Maxim DL as this gives best removal of hot pixels. 5,10 & 20 minute guided exposures have given me a very smooth finish. Processed in Photoshop. The best image of M13 I have taken has resolved stars to the core. The somewhat forgotten Ngc6207 is showing structure and threre are a few more little galaxies easily visible. A PGC galaxy 3515221 can also just be seen at mag 19.64. This side by side inverted image and CDC chart confirms its location.

An inverted image of the core

Jupiter

Some recent captures under less than average seeing. Using my ZWO ASI120MC camera and the clubs Celestron C9.25 with a 2x Barlow lens. Captured at 11 frames per second approx 90 seconds of recoding to avoid image rotation. The best 50% of frames captured was the result. My best capture of the Great red spot I like the small white disturbance into the south equatorial belt, that defines the red spot nicely. I can also see  some lovely striation detail to the North Belt. I am pleased with it despite the seeing, but not as happy as I would like when seeing some of the other jupiter images posted on Facebook groups. I will of course endeavour to get a little more each capture and produce an image worthy of publicaion.

I am very happy with this image capture of Jupiter and Ganymede. A steadier atmosphere gave a small improvement to the overall image quality. Captured to the right is Ganymede. It looked like a horrible blur at first. An RGB realign later has given a pleasing result to it's disk. I also gave a small increase in colour vibrance and some contrast adjustment. Some distinct patterns in the north & south temperate belts can also be seen. I have a few more Avi's to process and I will add to this post if anything new comes from them..

 

The Sky at Night Update.

Last night was an amazing night for me and the society http://www.brecklandastro.org.uk/. For the second time now we played host to the sky at Night crew to take part in Aprils show that pays homage to the Hubble space telescope and it's 25 years of service. The focus of the show will be the iconic images produced by hubble. The club members had selected thier own favourite & best images for targets that hubble has imaged and the crew selected a few for the show. Richard's, Bob's and my own images were selected. We each done a piece to camera answering questions from Pete Lawrence. Living in hope they don't end up on the cutting room floor. The show will be broadcast on April 12th on BBC4

The Sky At Night

Our society http://www.brecklandastro.org.uk/ will once again play host to the Sky at night team. Hopefully the weather will hold for some observing. I hope to show the team some of my deep images showing the mag 20+ galaxies & quasars I have captured. The topic is Hubble's "Deep field" to coinside with it's 25th anniversary. I hope they will be interested. Watch this space for an update.

Solar eclipse or not........

Diary entry for March 21st 2015 just reads "Bugger"

Alas the weather as usual blotted out ANY view at all of the solar eclipse. Right on cue at 11.30 the skies cleared to reveal what the remainder of a lovely spring day. I am of course disappointed that I didn't get to see anything. However I get get some pics of the Jan 4th 2011.

 

 So at least this post is totally wasted.

A trio in Leo.

Unfortunately I have been ill and off work these past few months and my astronomy has taken a back seat. along with my cycling and my passion for just about everything that means the world to me.  I have been outside just 3 times since. I am now thankfully on the road to recovery with the support of my wonderful partner & family plus some great close friends. Mentioning no names Des & Phil oops, and once again my love for astronomy and everything else is returning. Also a big thanks also to all my colleagues that have asked after me at work. most of which have a gander as to what this astro geek gets up to at night. I enjoy talking to you guys & gals about my amazing hobby.

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Looking back over some old images. I found the ever popular Leo triplet of galaxies. Taken with the Canon 40D. I knew I could improve on it so that was the nights target. Taken through the Williams Optics GT81 and using 20 minute guided sub exposures. Calibrated with Dark frames in Maxim DL5. Processed in photoshop. This final cropped image is 3 hours of data. A very pleasing result Perfect focus and some lovely lane structure in all 3 galaxies.

Me being me I wasn't just satisfied with that. So I loaded Carte Du Ceil and had a closer look. I downloaded the PGC Principle Galaxies Catalogue and brought up my field of view.  The field lit up with large number of very little red dots. I loaded side by side Photoshop with my image. It soon became very clear that I had a deep image. The 15th- 18th magnitude galaxies were easily visible. After finding a few dozen I thought I should mark them and see how many I could find. There was a few places I must have missed as I seem to be adding more each time I    look. So far the total is 153 and counting.

The fainter galaxies were somewhat more of a challenge.

The image has been plate solved and I needed this to locate and verify the position of the objects that were barely visible even at 400 x  zoom in Photoshop. But I did find that an inverse of the frame gives greater contrast as some of the faintest smudges are just a couple of shades brighter than the background.

Incredibly small movements in the mouse movement moved the RA and DEC by arc seconds across the frame and CDC confirms the location of PGC 3542189. As I mentioned earlier the subtle difference in colour in the centre of the square with a contrast boost and inverted. reveals the presence of this Magnitude 20.31 Galaxy. Position confirmed as RA:11:18:17 and 
DEC :13:03:11. Unfortunately I am unable to find any information on the galaxy type or distance / redshift other than it has been catalogued.

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 I just picked up on my emails to learn  that our society http://www.brecklandastro.org.uk/ will again host the presenters of the Sky at night programme for a piece based on the HST. and it's deep field images. I think I will point the scopes next clear night and put in a contribution of my own deep field. They may be interested in what I have just done as well as a previous post on M97 & M108 with some very distant quasars. We will wait and see.

Comet C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy animation

They say an image speaks a thousand words.

So for me an animation speakes a whole volume.

This will be the 3rd animation I have done that shows the movement

of a comet. This one is of course Comet C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy.

 

 

26 Frames of 2 minute exposures. Animation created in Maxim DL after a DDP stretch, & Crop in Imagesplus.

 

I hope we get a few more clear nights to have another go. Rapidly moving North also it has  moved over 10 degrees in 3 days since imaging on Saturday night.

Comet C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy

Discovered on the 17th August by the renound Terry Lovejoy with a very modest set up 8 " Schmidt–Cassegrain telescope. C2014 Q2  was discovered at apparent magnitude 15 in the southern constellation of Puppis, from his observatory in Brisbane, Australia. This long period comet has arrived at an inclination of 80 degrees so we can be sure it originated from the Oort cloud. Orbital calculations show that this passage of the comet was 11,000 years. But our solar system have had a dramatic effect pulling on the comet and reduced it's next pass to 8,000 years.

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We have had to wait until late December to get our first glimpse in the northern hemisphere. My first visual and 2nd "Lovejoy" comet was Tuesday 6th at the Ellingham observatory using the 20". The nucleus virtually filled the eyepice and was also a very pleasing sight in the binoculars. The recent high winds have slowed and the forecast for last night was to be clear. Dome open as early as possible allowing scopes to reach ambient temperture. CCD cooled to minus 27 degrees (outside temp 3degrees), scope pointed and centered on the trees across the road from me, awaiting it's rise above the treeline. First image captured at 18.29. A series of 23 x 2 minute exposures. Cropped and overprocessed to show the tail structure.

I have cropped further for the second image and produced an inverse or negative. To me this is more impressive as it clearly shows the tidal ribbons of dust. Images in late December showed some tail disconnection, powerful solar winds cause these disconnections and came sometimes rip a stream from the tail completely. Nothing visible here although the larger central portion appears to be snaking back nicely with the solar wind.

 

 

 

 

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These images are the same series as above but processed a little differntly to focus on just the comet nucleus. Virtually no tail structure can be seen here but for me a more realistic and cleaner image of it's icy core. Iam also amazed at the colours. "The colour is likely due to the presence of two gases cyanogen (CN)2 and diatomic carbon (C2) which glow green when their molecules are ionised or excited.

                                         

 

"Ionisation causes electrons within the molecules to gain energy and when the electrons drop back down to their normal state, they give off light of a certain wavelength. For these molecules, they emit green light and since they are very strong emitters, their green colour dominates the comet."

 

 

 

 

Still wanting a little more, I gave the image an extreme crop on the nucleus and removed colour. What I cant tell is have I captured the nucleus shape or is this just pixel drift?. Tell me what you think. Your comment always welcomed.

 

 

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First post for a long while, Last one of the year.

Due to illness this has been my first post for a few months now. It was great to go out to my observatory and dust off the cobwebs and roll back the roof. I am lucky in that once I have powered & set up approx 10 minutes I can then control all my imaging from the comfort of inside the house. No more endless hours in the cold. Through the 35 years or so I have been an astronomer I feel i have earned & done my time in the cold. I was surprised that everything was working well. I decided an easy target to get me back into the swing. Due to the moon's presence I limited the exposures to 5 minutes. A total of 2 hours 20 minutes has given me this result. I also took a number of 10 second exposures, so the final result was not to over expose the core. Taken through the William Optics GT81. No calibration frames used. Just processed in Photoshop. I hope to return with longer exposures to capture the outer shell of gas. Looking forward to posting pics of Comet Lovejoy too soon.