It's the Moon....

Yet again an old favourite photographed.

2.5" Semi-Apo 520mm with 2x Barlow at Prime Focus.
Nikon D40 in B&W Mode ISO800 1/60sec.

I like the way the sun is reflecting off the walls of crater Sinus Iridum (on the edge of Mare Iridium). - top left. Craters Plato and Copernicus are clearly seen.

MJ.

It's Saturn!

Just a quick report this time....
Went out last night specifically to view Saturn. Viewable around 21:00 in the South-East, but waited until approx. 22:00 so it was higher and brighter, just left and down of Spica.
The rings looked really splendid and Titan was easily seen.
The half Moon was making the sky really light so I think I will wait until the cycle completes before taking another look - which will also enable Saturn to gain a little height at an earlier time as well.
All-in-all a great warmish night.

MJ.

Let it snow....

So .... managed to get outside for the first "proper" stargaze this year! The recent snowfall gave the evening an almost Christmasy feel to the air - very crisp, dark and clear. My window of opportunity only lasted about 2 hours, but even so I managed to see some great stuff.
A while ago I viewed (through the binoculars) a row of three clusters in Auriga which was in the west at the time and I wanted to re-visit these when I could. These were my targets for last night.
I found them with not much trouble with the help of Sky At Nights Star Chart (great magazine by the way!).
From Capella in Auriga, move South to Kids (this forms part of a small triangle) then slowly go West. You come across 3 clusters almost in a line of varying magnitudes. These are (in order) M38, M36 and M37.
What a site these were in the binoculars as well as the telescope. Very rich star fields indeed.
I also spotted a naked eye cluster in the West - M44 - this is a great site in binos but a wide-field scope at low power really shows the brightness of these stars.

On my next outing my target is the Leo Triplet.

Happy viewing.
MJ.

It's cold outside....

Well, last night was an absolute corker!
I wrapped-up warm and got out in the very cold December night.
Brilliant Orion to the South, really bright Jupiter and it's moons in Taurus just to the West and the glittering Pleiades.
The Milky Way clearly overhead with the double-cluster near Cassiopeia clearly visible to the naked eye.
Oh ..... and I got to see at least 15 of the Geminids - some very bright and some not so.
The stars were really just like jewels in the sky and it was a truly memorable night.
I then went in at 10:30pm to watch the tribute to Patrick Moore on the BBC.

MJ

I Stand Corrected

Following Fridays "moon shadow on Jupiter" high I asked the question at Stargazers Lounge, a fine source of information at any level, and this was their response;
http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/168853-whats-this-on-jupiter/

So that's it then, this weeks jobs will be cleaning my lens, checking my camera sensor and hopefully producing better shots.

Al

Focusing on the Subject

Having had some successful nights observing and taking pictures I feel more relaxed setting up my equipment.  This is evident as I have now found how to focus my ep's when used in the projector.

As the moon was bright I thought I'd try Jupiter first.  These pictures are taken at 150X mag, the highest I can go with my current equipment, and shows a moon, top middle, during transit across the planet.  That's right, barely a week ago I was pleased I had cloud bands now I have a moon transit.  This is evidence of how much can be achieved in a short space of time if you just practice.  I have checked a few Stellarium and the Jupiters moon site (a link to this is on the right hand side of this page) and can't see that it was one of the major moons so I'll ask the question on the net and get back to you on that.

I also thought I'd take some movies and have a go at stacking.  What I have found is that my pc struggles with over 100 allignment points over 500 frames.  I also found that it takes a long time and my results were worse than the video.  It's a complex process trying to tell Registax which frames to use but again I will persevere and keep trying.

This is the video I am working from and shows Tycho in the middle of the frame.

This is a still I took of about the same area;

Al

When Old Friends Come a' Calling

The moon was a bit of a hindrance last week so tonight I went out and there it was 8.5 days old, a mere 242,195 miles away and at only 63% of it's brightest phase being just half full (or a waxing gibbous if we're going to get technical).

It's been ages since I've looked at it and, well, after scanning it for 10 minutes or so I thought I'd take a picture or 20.

(Exp 1/250sec ISO250 f5)

The Apennine mountains looked fantastic as the long shadows were cast down from their peaks (toward the top of the moon), likewise the craters Alphonsus and Arzachel with their mountains inside them (half way down at the line of termination.

Sometimes it's nice to revisit old friends!

Al

Ahhhhh Andromeda ....

So Al has produced a superb shot of Jupiter from his back garden. Not one to sit on my laurels I stepped-up to the plate. One of my personal favourites is M31 (The Andromeda Galaxy). I've tried to get this before but I was convinced that I could do better .... and how right I was! It was a very cold evening on Saturday (17th Nov) and the sky was superb.
Auriga, Jupiter, Taurus and Orion just starting to make it's way now - signalling (at least to me) the coming of winter, to name a few.

Here we have M31. Nikon D40 35mm f/1.8 ISO800 15sec.

And M45 (with Jupiter and Taurus). Nikon D40 35mm f/1.8 ISO400 8sec.











These images are the basic jpegs from the camera. I also shot in RAW but I could not get them any better in my image manipulation programs. So maybe that's a lesson learnt?
Happy viewing.

MJ

Like a Dog with a Bone

Early November, when the autumnal evenings are lit up with the flash of 2nd rate explosives are not normally a time I relish but after last Mondays pictures I thought I'd retry.  Seeing was pretty poor to awful due to the cloud and moisture but there were gaps in the cloud coverage so I hunkered down over the eyepiece / viewfinder to see if I could improve on my last Jupiter picture.
Well, it depends on how you measure success; I did use an 15mm eyepiece in my projector so in effect I was taking a picture at a 100x mag AND I did remember to shoot in RAW.

Details - Exp 1/50sec ISO 800

I have got a 10mm eyepiece which would be the next step but I'm happy with what I have at the moment. I also probably didn't have the camera set up exactly right & I didn't try taking a video and stacking the images.  Too many things to remember in the cold night air with the results of Chinese gunpowder skills blasting off all around you!

Astronomy is a real roller coaster ride.  You get a bit disheartened at first when you realise that the pictures you see in books are not the ones you'll ever see through your scope.  You accept that, enjoy the new astral sights and then you start to take pictures, which again brings you down as it's difficult to capture what you actually see but if anyone had told me that I could take a picture of Jupiters moons, like in the last post, 4 years ago I wouldn't have believed them, now I have definite cloud bands and a little colour.  I'm happy.

What next?  Andromeda!!

Al

Remember, Remember........

Being a clear night I thought I would try for some more experimental photographs.

I still can't find infinity using my adapter/ eyepiece combo so thought I'd try some plain afocal shots using the camera as a 500mm f5 lens.  Unfortunately I didn't take the pictures in RAW so was unable to edit them as much.

This is what I got;

Jupiter with the Galilean Moons - Exposure 1/5 Second (From L-R Calisto, Ganymede, Io & Europa - though don't quote me on that!)

 Above is Jupiter (Exposure 1/640 sec ISO 400.  Now bear in mind I had no eyepiece so I have zoomed the backside out of this but I'm sure there are cloud bands visible!
And finally

The Pleiades. Exposue 2.5 secs ISO 640. I did take a shot of this a couple of years back so this is just a marker for me.  There is a little movement which may be the tripod or exposure time, I'm guessing it was movement.

Apart from all the fireworks going off it was a great sky tonight and not too cold.  Hopefully we'll have many more!

Al