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.

The Magnificent M87

A behemoth in galaxy terms M87 or Virgo 1 is a target that a DSLR does not take full advantage of. Especially an imaging set up for wide field. A super giant elliptical that is almost  with no dust lanes. A much deeper exposure is required to capture the plasma flow from the galaxies active nucleus.Although it does look like I have captured the inner part closest to the core.What do you think?. Sporting a super massive black hole some 6.6 billion solar masses & larger than our sun -Pluto orbit,it churns out enough X rays, Gamma rays, Radio waves to keep the professional astronomers and orbiting telescopes busy for decades to come.
Just 46 minutes worth of data here. I had problems with the guiding and rejected more than half of the 2 minute guided frames. Darks subtracted and a gradient removal.

The Needle Galaxy

Known as the Needle Galaxy for its narrow profile, viewed edge on it is probably the most spectacular edge on Galaxy I have seen. I had look visually before I connected the Canon up. A central bulge was very noticeable and the arms just visible in my 90mm. I would love a look soon through our societies 20" http://www.brecklandastro.org.uk/ 

For set up and framing of an image I usually set the camera to 3200 Iso to capture a faint fuzzy,  When I programmed the imaging run I set the Iso to 3200. I have never used such a high setting on a long run of images before. I tried it on M42 but was not happy with the noise and never published the image. I have no stock of 3200 darks either so I thought the run would be a waste of time. Needless to say I was pleasantly surprised with the result. As I mentioned no darks, flats bias frames used. A fine gradient removal was used to even out the image. A visible central bulge and a dust lane gives me the result I was hoping for.

More comet PANSTARRS

A few wonderful clear nights last week has certainly inspired some of  the members of http://www.brecklandastro.org.uk/  including myself. With an unfortunate position of a neighbours rooftop I have to wait until midnight to get a glimpse of the now rapidly departing Comet PANSTARRS. Still sporting a lovely fan like tail again I have managed to collect an hours worth of images. I don't know if it's me or Deepsky stacker. I just cannot seem to get the nucleus right. HIP379 looks amazing with a Star Spikes Pro effect.

Rupes Recta

The straight wall as it is commonly known is a geological fault about 110 km's in lenth. From the suns angle it appears as a steep cliff face. Nothing can be futher from the truth. a gentle 7 degree incline gives a striking appearance. A 3 pane mosaic gives wonderful sharpness and detail.

 

I think I am really enjoying the moon again. We regularly curse and wish it away. But I must say I have loved every minute waiting for Regisax to show me a final image. I use Photoshop to stack. I must make one apology though. I have forgotten to a RGB align on the past few images therefore at high magnification you can see the misalignment. I will revisit and correct them. But for now I entend to enjoy our closest neighbour La luna. Comments always welcome. Feel free to offer them.

Addendum 22/4/13 I have now RGB aligned and a gentle sharpen added.



Montes Apenninus

For the first time I am trying a 4 x 2" ED barlow. Working at approx f 28 There are more than a few wonderful targets I can build a detailed mosaic image from. The first target was the stunning Montes Apenninus. Captured from the enigmatic Copernicus in shadow down through the high walls and multiple central peaks of  eratosthenes. A gentle curve to the rugged mountain peaks extends down to Mons Hadley, Home now to a lunar rover and the landing site of Apollo 15 near to Hadley rille. I have just spent a few minutes zooming in on the region and can match features to confirm the landing area. I can also just make out Hadley rille meandering it's way though the region. http://airandspace.si.edu/collections/imagery/apollo/AS15/images/A15site_traverses.jpg . A lava flow into or from Mare Serenitatis concludes our 600 mile journey across the mountains. Centre is my favourite crater Plato, A lava filled impact crater some 3.8 billion years old It appears to be 101 miles of perfectly smooth lava?? To the east is again a strange feature called Vallis Alpes anoth lava filled fault either side of steep walled cliffs.My last visit is to two craters on the right the higher to the left is the steep walled Aristoteles and the slightly smaller Eudoxus. Here endeth my tour of a beautiful area of our nearest neighbour.

 

Addendum 22/4/13 I have now RGB aligned and a gentle sharpen added.

No deep sky for a week or two.

Although the moon is the bain of us deep sky imagers, we unfortunately cannot get away from it. So rather than moan about it I thought I would take advantage on a rare clear night. Using a 2x Barlow and the 40D. I use a programme I have mentioned a few times before called EOS movie record to record an HD video than can be stacked in Registax.

I have spent a great deal of time perfecting a wavelet algorithm to give the right amount of sharpness against the often seen over saturation into noise.


Mistaken by early astronomers as seas they were dubbed maria Latin for "Seas".
These Basalt plains were formed 3 to 4 billion years ago as lava flows erupted over the cooling surface of the moon.You can see clearly area of thicker magma that give the appearance of rivers flowing through the plains. The 8-9 largest craters you see are all between 70-100 miles wide. The light across the terminator has illuminated the back walls of several craters.
These walls are on average 10,000 feet high.
The areas are less reflective than the Highlands and thus appear darker.

Finally.......

The weather has been unkind, the neighbours wall and roof unmovable, these are just two of the annoyances to a backyard astronomer like myself. This is the first image I have taken of comet Pan Starrs. As it moves further north it also fades in brightness. With a wonderful fan like tail still a wonderful sight through a wide field scope like mine. It cleared the roof structure at around 11.00 pm and I set about with a few 1 minute frames to stack. I am pleased with the result. I was gutted that I missed the opportunity to capture it with the beautiful Andromeda galaxy. Unlike a couple of my fellow bloggers. Andrew for starters at  http://blog.andrewluck.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Final.jpg    Dr Dan's http://farawaythings.blogspot.co.uk/Fantastic result gents. I am a bit disappointed that there is no second point of interest in the image, on the other hand just happy to get a decent enough image to publish.