Our nearest neighbour at 383,000 km from earth as of 23.30 ish on the 23rd August. Most will be unaware that during a lunar month the moon does not have a perfect circular orbit around the earth, and its distance to earth varies over the month by just over 50,000 km. Currently the moon is getting closer by a 1 km per second.
Sitting and facing in a direction opposite to where the camera is pointing is a guarantee for me anyway for a failure to capture anything of significance especially when meteors are involved. A beautiful evening spent on the sun lounger I saw some really bright meteors and a few really bright ones streaking through the Andromeda region and going south. The camera however was under our pergola and left overnight to see what it could find.(covered jusy in case it rained) ISO 1600 and 20 second captures are the best my Canon can hope for without an excess of noise anyway. So here is the result a composite of 3 images with 3 faint streaks across the sky looking east.
During a recent stay from my brother, we sat one night in the hot tub and saw the ISS pass, we chatted for a while about it and found that another pass was due the following night. Camera ready and waiting 24 hours later I captured the pass as it was descending in the East, we also spotted what looked like something following it. What I didn't realise that just 8 hours earlier from pad 39 at KSC the Russian module Nauka launched atop of a Proton M rocket. Numerous delays of fuel leaks and dust contamination saw a 14 year wait in all for Nauka's launch. Eight days later it successfully docked with the ISS.
You can just see Nauka in the frame top right.
1 x 15 second image ISO400
Last night was the second opportunity to capture some light with the new astro camera. Time for some tests after plenty of reading on the different and optimum settings for gain, exposure and time and balancing that with my scope size and focal length. So we have 2 images M71 & M27. M71 a wonderful globular cluster in Sagitta. Exposure time was 15 x 3 minute exposures with gain at 0 to take advantage of the full well depth 50ke and 16 bit. Readout noise is below detection when cooled to -15. I am happy to play for a few months in Mono before unleashing the filters. M27 was set to 5 minute exposures and here just six of them for 30 minutes of total exposure. A crop too of approx 400%
To the left is a 3 hour calibrated frames desaturated from the colour of the 294mc pro, to the right is 20 x 3 minutes frames calibrated from the new Mono camera. One error I made was setting the camera at gain 100 so stars are a little bloated. I am not interested in anything other than it's sensitivity and noise levels. Test 1 pretty incredible.
Purchased from my friends at the widescreen-centre.co.uk in Cambridge. I cannot wait to put her though her paces and deliver some amazing images.
Amazing! After the recent appearance of the "zero amp glow" ASI533MC-PRO, here is another "zero amp glow" camera with a larger sensor, 16 bit ADC, huge dynamic range and a pixel size that would suit many small to medium sized amateur APO telescopes (or small SCTs etc.)
The ASI2600MC Pro uses Sony’s latest back-illuminated IMX571 APS-C format native 16-bit ADC sensor. It has an ultra-high 14 stops dynamic range, ultra-low 1.0e readout noise and an innovative breakthrough resulting in zero amp-glow. It is a camera born from the appeal of astrophotography lovers. I cannot wait to put this through it's paces and deliver some great images.
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.
A wonderful double rainbow graced our Norfolk skies today. Alexanders dark band captured too.
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.
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.
The dark is a lonely place.
A cosmic wanderer, Comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas or more commonly known as Comet A3 has traced its elliptical path through the solar system, a j...
