Astro-photography

Mars

2010-02-10T20:40:00.003Z

Its been a while since I tried Mars, and its usually been unsuccessful, anyway I thought I'd try again as it was somewhere useful.

I tried first with a standard setup, but wasn't seeing much, and it was really cold, and I couldn't get the focussing right. Anyway, I thought I'd have one more go with a 2x barlow lens in the mix with the webcam, and although the results didn't look much on the screen at the time, I was quite impressed with the results.

See what you think.

Venus again

2009-02-10T20:13:00.002Z

So this time, I lugged my telescope upstairs onto the balcony and took some shots of Venus. At last I managed to get more than a rather blobby shaped blob. In fact you can clearly see it is showing phases like the moon here. All this while trying to supervise my son writing thank you letters and juggling USB cables. Taken and stacked using a webcam and registax, but taken over the roof of the house across the street - not the best for avoiding heat haze!

Anyway - at last a good shot of venus.

Venus and the moon

2009-01-29T22:19:00.003Z

It was my sons birthday today (8) and he wanted to go out to Pizza Express. Just as I got home though, I could see Venus and the moon for the first time for days. So I got the camera and tripod out whilst the rest of the family were deciding what time to go out, and what to eat.
With my new USB extension cable, I could actually connect the computer up to the camera directly, and download results straight away, which for small objects means you can check on focus and stuff.
Actually it was light enough for the camera to autofocus on the moon initially, so I got it to do that, then flipped the lens to manual.
I took a whole range of exposures and zoom levels over the next 1/2 an hour or so at intervals, and sorted through them to pick out the ones I liked.

Venus and the moon, with a bit of earthlight showing the shadowy side.

Showing it in relation to everything else, and then a closeup of venus

which isn't very photogenic. I couldn't be bothered to set up the telescope and imager, as due to its location it means dragging the whole lot upstaris and onto the balcony, where the neighbours give me strange looks, and also the pizza was calling!

Another venus

2008-12-09T08:59:00.002Z

Another go at venus. Well it was sitting there in the almost daylight allowing much easier telescope setup, so I thought I'd have a quick go. By the time it was all set and focused, it was pretty dark, and I got a few shots before is sank below next doors roof. This is probably the best of them.

Venus and Jupiter

2008-12-04T14:48:00.003Z

I missed the transition of the moon and Venus recently - clouds and, well I forgot/had to ferry the children around at the time I could have seen it. Anyway, last night I did see Venus and Jupiter although they had moved away from the moon. However this called for some quick photography as they started to set behind the opposite house roof and getting set up in time always takes longer when you are in a hurry - plugs just won't fit into holes, especially in the dark. So I expect the focusing isn't as good as it could be.

Shows up the street light glow rather well dontcha think?

A bit of a mix

2008-11-19T07:59:00.002Z

Going home last night I spotted Jupiter on the horizon from the bypass. Not that unusual its been there for a while, but wait, there is a companion with it today - Venus.
I rushed home and got out the camera, but the position was not very good - both were sinking fast and there was a number of things in the way. In the end the only way I could get them both in the frame was to straddle a tree!

As the sky was very clear, I had a go at a couple of other items too - the pleiades again.

I also tried M42 but haven't finished processing that one yet.

Deep sky

2008-10-21T23:47:00.004+01:00

After buying some more stuff (mostly batteries and USB leads - so relatively cheap) I had another go at some deep sky stuff. I've never really seen the andromeda galaxy, but tonight I did see it, and photographed it too! However the photographs will need some work I think, but here are some preliminary pictures.

This one shows it rather overenhanced, but you can also see the small galaxy just above it.

Jupiter again

2008-09-19T11:56:00.003+01:00

Jupiter is starting to get higher in the sky, but the conditions have been dreadful for a long time now. When it hasn't been raining its been threatening rain. All this adds up to lots of cloud cover.
Anyway, last night - just for a while, some of the sky was visible. There was still scattered cloud around, but less than normal and I could see Jupiter shining out - still not that much above the horizon.
I could also see that a couple of houses away, they had some sort of light show going on in their garden, as their tree's were backlit - hmmm!
Anyway - I had a go, the telescope aligned and settled on Jupiter very nicely. With the LPI I took some images and got some reasonable results.

With a bit of enhancement you can see some of the satellites too.

From left to right, Ganymede, Io and Europa on the right.

Then I got it to find Andromeda, nope - nothing, far too hazy and messy in that direction.

Jupiter in the round

2008-07-30T23:24:00.003+01:00

A quick look outside and its a clear night. I can't be bothered to set up the telescope, but I take a look through binoculars at Jupiter, which is looking quite clear. As I watch, I see the ISS go overhead!

Anyway, I decide its worth a photograph, so I get out the camera and tripod and take a few snaps at various settings to see what I can get. Its nothing like what you see in the telescope, but it makes for a nice assemblage.

If you zoom in, you can see the motion blur dragging the points out into streaks, and this is only a 10s exposure, but from a distance it looks pretty ok. Zoom in not quite so far and you can see some of the satellites.

Jupiter - another go

2008-07-23T07:57:00.003+01:00

I had another shot at Jupiter last night. With the telescope on the patio, I have a window of about 15-20 minutes when it is visible between two trees. This time I got set up a little earlier and managed two separate imaging samples. The visibility wasn't that great with it low on the horizon, and again it didn't look as good through the LPI webcam as through the lens. I guess the old mark one eyeball still has a useful range and pixel density.
You can see three of the satellites however, so that's a little better.

Also this time I had the settings right so I could post process the images with registax, which I think does a better job than envisage.

I might try a different technique if I get a chance.

Jupiter

2008-07-21T23:56:00.002+01:00

Its been a while - but now the nights are getting a little earlier and I can be bothered to stay up. Also there is a new jewel in the sky, in the shape of Jupiter, so its time to have a go and see what can be got.
Its not easy, Jupiter is low in the sky between some trees, and after a few goes, the only place I can get a good view of it is from in the middle of a wooden bridge. This is not ideal, as everytime I move, the image leaps around. Even so, its the first go and the images are okish, but would be better if I'd saved them in a better format.

Maybe another night I'll have a better go, and remember a few more things. You can see a couple of moons, but its not as clear as it is through the eyepiece.

The moon and mercury

2008-05-06T22:38:00.004+01:00

Its been a while since I took any photos of the night sky. What with some foul weather, and a dose of flu that had me confined to bed for a week, the opportunities have been thin on the ground. However tonight it was clearish, although some hazy cloud around, and I wondered about looking for some M object or other to try and photograph. However checking with a few star charts, and with stellarium, it seems Mercury might be visible soon after sunset.
Its in the west obviously, which is not a good view from our garden. A whacking big house being in the way for one! However we have a balcony on the front of the house that we never use, which I thought might be useful. It turns out to be an excellent platform for this. Being on the first floor, its not too far being at roof top level, or at least looking over the houses across the street is only 1 or 2 degrees from horizontal.

Anyway, I scanned the sky anxiously as the Sun set. Stellarium showed the moon would be lined up with Mercury, but such a thin wedge that it might not be visible. Eventually after much scanning, and not a little ridicule from the neighbours, I spotted a thin rim of the moon.
About 30 minutes later, as it got darker, there was Mercury - right where it should be!

Saturn again

2008-04-10T10:12:00.002+01:00

Last night, I spent a long time trying images of Saturn. I've got a new motorised focuser, which finally means I can focus in an out with out any perceptible shake of the image. This makes it a little easier getting an image into focuser, although its still a lot of trial and error.

This is the best of the pictures from last night.

An iridium flare

2008-04-08T08:12:00.005+01:00

Last night was a great night for observing orbital things, in theory. The space shuttle, a number of rocket bits and pieces and various other satellites were all scheduled to pass overhead.
However, that was the theory. In practice there was an awful lot of cloud about. None of that wispy mostly transparent stuff. No, this was thick piled up stuff as dense as you like. But - it wasn't wall to wall, at least not all the time.
Anyway - I went out to try and spot the ISS - although it was a bright pass, the time was not good, as the sky was still a faint bluey colour, the sun not having set very long ago. I could see a couple of the brighter stars after a while and the ISS should be magnitude -1.8 which is brighter than pretty much anything else in the sky other than the moon, but it wasn't looking good for the 3rd magnitude rocket bit that was coming over at the same time. I managed to spot the ISS eventually, but it wasn't the bright object it normally was.

I skipped most of the other passes as they were not very bright and with the large covering of cloud, would be difficult to spot. However there was an iridium flare scheduled for about 5 minutes to 10. The iridium satellites are a whole group of orbiting communication satellites, that have a highly polished panel attached, that if it happens to be in just the right orientation reflects the sun very brightly. There are programs to predict these events, I used the heavens above site.
I set up my point-and-shoot digital camera on video mode on a tripod pointing roughly in the right direction to try and spot it. I waited until about the right time, and then pressed the button and hoped that it was pointing about right, and that nasty bank of cloud would not obscure it.

What do you know, I saw it and caught it too!

It looks better at the original resolution, but you can see a bright dot at least. It is magnitude -7 or so, which is very bright indeed.

ISS and ATV

2008-04-01T22:21:00.002+01:00

The ISS is being serviced by the ATV at the moment. They are in about the same orbit, but the ATV is just a little ahead of the ISS. The ISS is very visible at magnitude -2 or better, and the ATV is noticeable as it is leading the ISS. This particular ATV is the Jules Verne and is testing out various things.

Anyway, it was clear last night, but there was high level cloud which made everything a bit fuzzy, and the photos didn't show very much.

Tonight it was a much crisper night, and I tried taking the camera off manual and letting it take different length exposures based on the available light. They varied from about 5 seconds to 10 or 12. One of them actually caught both vehicles and showed them up quite nicely after a bit of rebalancing of levels. You can see the ISS as the main streak, and just to the top of the frame there is a thin streak from the ATV.

Also evident was about 3/4 of the way across the sky it went into shadow and started to fade, which is caught in the last one.

Another go at Saturn

2008-03-25T08:34:00.002Z

I thought it was time to switch back from the DSLR to the LPI CCD camera and have another go at planetary imaging. After tea I had a look outside, and had noted the relatively clear skies throughout the day so thought it worth a go.

Having got the equipment outside, and selected polar alignment, I watched as polaris, and actually nearly the whole sky began to cloud over. By the time I was ready to try aligning there were no stars left to align on! So I went in and watched some TV and had a cup of coffee. An episode of Torchwood later, and the sky had cleared nicely.

I hooked up the LPI and the laptop, and tried Mars to begin with. A couple of attempts but it wasn't really showing up as more than a slightly orange blob.

So I switched to Saturn, which is now much higher in the sky. After a bit of fiddling around, and attempting to use the LPI to both image and guide, and a couple of software lockups, I succeeded in getting something.

Not too bad, in fact it was looking good enough that I thought it would withstand a bit more magnification. So I went inside and got a 2x barlow lens and slotted it in.
It was definitely larger, but focusing was really difficult.

After a bit more fiddling around, and using registax on the results and a bit of tweaking this is sort of the final version, even showing a moon.

This has to be the best Saturn image I have to date, which is nice!

Constellations

2008-03-13T16:34:00.002Z

It was very windy last night, so I didn't try any telescope shots. There was a lot of broken cloud about and it kept obscuring different parts of the sky. However with the camera on a tripod hooked up to the laptop I thought it worth a few shots. With it fully wired up, once you are focused and aligned you can just leave it to get on with 25 shots of 25 seconds and go into the warm.

I started with the plough, as it is nicely aligned and easy to see. Had a go at Saturn in Leo, but clouds and aircraft conspired to wreck that.

Cassiopeia looked reasonable so I took quite a few of that and stacked them. I need to get better at post processing though.

Another go at the orion nebula

2008-03-05T11:40:00.003Z

I tried some rather short exposure settings on M42, but decided this time to try some 25s exposures with the DSLR mounted at prime focus on the telescope. I wasn't sure that the telescope would track well enough. Also Orion is just above the house and descends below it through the night, so not an ideal location either. Anyway - worth a try.

It turned out that many of the images had elliptical stars, or were smeared out, but there were a number within the 25 taken that looked ok.

I used DSLRshutter program to take them which worked pretty well. I also experimented with nebulosity for focussing without much success.

Anyway - after throwing lights, flats, darks and biases at deep sky stacker, it pronounced that only one of the images was worth stacking... its probably right but it could have broken the news gently!

Anyway, its probably my best shot of M42 to date, but still not much compared with anyone who's any good!

Step by step, its getting a bit better.

More equipment

2008-02-26T10:18:00.002Z

I got a zoom lens for the DSLR, and tried a few shots of th night sky with that. The results were not bad. These were taken from a tripod rather than a telescope mount so you can't do long exposures of the stars start to streak. Setting high ISO numbers and short exposures is the compromise.

Here is the Orion nebula taken.

and here is the Pleiades taken similarly.

and one with the shorter lens of the plough again

Then a couple of days later I tried the camera connected to the telescope again. I had it equatorially mounted and it seemed a little smoother. A number of the photos came out streaky though, so it was a question of picking the best to stack. So here is the orion nebula (M42) again looking a little better.

Its starting to look better. I'm not sure about the focusing though, and I'm not sure they are as straight as they could be. However the success story has to be the remote release I bought that connects to the laptop and the Delphinius software that allows you to setup a shooting schedule and go inside for a coffee while it takes and downloads 20 shots or more.

The shuttle and the ISS

2008-02-13T10:46:00.003Z

The shuttle docked with the ISS and made some passes overhead during reasonable seeing conditions. I managed to get some reasonable trails from this event, although really you wouldn't know what it was other than a bright spot. I didn't attempt to get a telescope on it, it was moving pretty fast, but did have a look with binoculars.
You can see it rising above a tree in this trail, although there is also a confusing contrail moving horizontally.

And here it is setting, going past Mars. Two images overlayed.

How things stack up

2008-02-08T10:11:00.000Z

I had attempted to stack a number of the orion images together - but ran into some lack of knowledge with my attempts to drive DeepSkyStacker. It was doing unspeakable things to my images and they looked far worse than when I started out the process.
After some discussions with the author I learnt a little more about using the program, and after some trial and error got something that was better than what I started out with.

Hurrah!

Wide sky pictures

2008-02-07T08:12:00.000Z

I've been looking around for a while for a way to attach the camera on top of the telescope, and so allow photographs to be taken through the camera lens. This allows some wider field photography, where you can capture constellations and stuff. There were a couple of places that sell these sort of attachment for my telescope in the U.S., and some places in the UK but all out of stock. Also they seem reasonably expensive at about £80 or so.

So - when in a DIY shop yesterday, I spotted some velcro attachment straps. These are long enough to wrap about the main body of the telescope, and strap a small bendy tabletop tripod that came free with the camera onto the main tube. It looks like this:

So - I tried a little constellation photography.

This shows the effect of light pollution quite well! After a little cleaning up

I doubt it will win awards, but its a start!

Getting more familiar

2008-02-06T08:24:00.000Z

Tonight I thought I should push my comfort zone. I'd spent a happy afternoon a while ago playing with the remote controls on the autostar controller via a serial link to a laptop. It allows you to control all aspects remotely.

I'd also read a bit about polar aligning the telescope - this looked a little scary, not least because of the rather crazy angle everything ends up at. After having read through it a couple of times though, it didn't seem to be so scary, and practising a couple of times indoors in the light helps!

Anyway - after a few false starts outside - like finding the "home" position for polar alignment, it all came together. It was really quite easy. It looks a bit weird, but it works. I tried imaging Saturn as a test, and tried using the tracking option to keep the telescope centred on the planet. I'm not sure if it worked or not, it did seem to drift out of view, but it could be down to operator error.
The pictures of Saturn weren't any better than any I've taken before so I won't bother showing them.

Deep Sky

2008-02-05T08:59:00.000Z

I had tried out some deep sky images with my new camera, but was rather disappointed in the results. I know I shouldn't expect great results on the first try, but all the images showed some degree of movement of the stars. Either this was camera shake because of the action of the mirror moving, and me pressing the button (but I tried using the "hat" trick to avoid that and they were still there). Otherwise it could be the motors on the scope not tracking as accurately as I hoped.

Last night I decided to experiment, and tried the LPI, which was not designed for deep sky objects, on M42 in Orion. I was reasonably impressed with the results. With an exposure setting of just over a second, the results were quite good.

After a bit of post processing, the stars are obvious and there is even a bit of nebula glow.

Better than with the camera anyway.

A new camera - and a clear night

2008-02-01T12:00:00.000Z

My new camera arrived - a Canon EOS 400D. The good news about this is that it will do long exposures. It will do timed exposures up to 30s, and has a bulb setting for arbitrary times.

The bad news is it is quite a complex bit of kit, and will take some time to get to know how to use it.
The good news - its a clear night. The bad news - I'm not even sure how to switch on the camera, let alone use it.

Still - a clear night is not to be wasted, so I set up the equipment, and managed to get the camera attached to the back of the telescope with the appropriate adapters. Focusing was as difficult with this as with the LPI interface I soon found out. I also managed to confuse myself a number of times with the mirror setting. This allows you to either view from the top or straight through, but typically I'd find the right star with the normal eyepiece, then try and focus the camera and find it pitch black. Then it would tumble - I had to switch the mirrors over!

I tried some images of M42 and got some results, which is more than I'd ever done before. They weren't very good though. The wind was howling around and a number of roads had been closed to high sided vehicles, so it wasn't a good setting for long exposures. I also found that the mirror movement caused blurring and although I think there is a setting to disable that, I didn't know what it was. I reverted to the hat-trick - where you cover the lens, press the shutter, wait for a second for it to steady, then uncover the lens. I also covered it up towards the end of the shot for good measure. The wind continued to come in gusts though.

However with a bit of fiddling around on one of the better shots I go something that looked nebula-ish.

I tried Saturn too, but just guessed at the exposure, and it came out over exposed. I was getting very cold fingers by this time!

I then took some more images of Saturn with the LPI experimenting with the FITs save format, but couldn't get registax to accept them in any reasonable way.

Clouds and more clouds

2008-01-31T10:41:00.000Z

The last few days there has been nothing worth looking at during the night. Plenty of overcast, rain, wind etc.

So I've spent the time spending money instead. I've got a camera adapter together with a mounting ring for a Canon camera so I can turn the whole telescope into a huge camera lens. I'm still waiting for my camera to arrive, but the adapters are here. The adapter has another use in that you can also use it to mount lenses in, so as well as looking down with one lens, you can look straight through with another. This will be helpful for keeping the target in the right place. There is a mirror that flips up and down to divert the light to the normal viewing position or straight through.

Meanwhile, I'm looking into getting a better pair of binoculars - ones with a larger objective lens for better night viewing.

So not much progress basically.

A clear night at last

2008-01-25T08:11:00.000Z

As I sat in the office during the day, I kept sneaking a look out of the window, and there was a fair degree of blue sky visible. There were a few clouds around, but not the solid overcast that has been so common the last few weeks. I didn't dare to hope...

On the drive home, I tried squinting at the sky, to see if I could see stars. Its not very easy though, as you are speeding along to try and glimpse them amongst the street lights and tail lights.

When I jumped out of the car though, it was clear that there were stars visible, and I rushed inside, and took the telescope outside immediately to start cooling down. There seems to be quite a lot of equipment to get carried out to get set up properly. Telescope, battery power tank, hand controller, selection of lenses, table, laptop, power cable for laptop, CCD camera, digital camera, star chart...

Anyway - in between grabbing some bites for tea, and not helping get the children into bed, and loosing the mains adapter, I managed to get all set up. I aligned the telescope, and then jumped to Mars as a first test. I wanted to try out some new ideas with the LPI camera and see what I could do. Unfortunately, Mars is now almost overhead, and the telescope doesn't like such objects quite as much. First its a little harder to see in that position - and the flexible focusing adapter is bent into a 90° angle. Another problem is with the Alt-Az mounting you are close to the issue of gimble lock. When looking upwards, which way is up/down and which way right/left. I'm confused, and so are the telescope motors. I know I want it to go THIS way, but its not so clear which way that is.

Anyway - I did get it on target, but I was rather disappointed with the results.

I think it is still overexposed, and clearly more work is needed.

So I waited for a while for the moon to rise. It is full at the moment, so very bright. It rose behind my increasingly least favourite tree in the neighbours garden! So I had a go at imaging that, and the results were better.

This was taken through the branches of the tree, so was subject to a bit of interference. It was about 80 images stacked together. The software has an option to save all the frames for later processing, so I took some more pictures to try processing later.

The moon was now out from behind the tree, and Saturn was very closely following it. I had a go at imaging Saturn through the tree, and managed to get some reasonable shots this time. As Saturn is very close to the moon, it is almost lost in the glow from it.

I saved the raw images again to process later. Finally, still not clear whether the LPI camera was giving better results, I took a high magnification lens, and connected the digital camera afocally to it, and took a movie of Saturn. By now I'd been outside in the cold for several hours and was running out of ideas, enthusiasm and warmth, so I wasn't as careful as I could be - it all gets a bit fiddly in the dark and concentration is hard to maintain. After processing in registax, it did look like a recognisable Saturn.

Its at a bit of an unusal angle as I had all sorts of issues getting the camera adapter aligned and connected without thumb screws running into each other.

So I took the telescope inside, and packed up. I then went and had a go at reprocessing the raw images, and the registax program is very good. It can be a bit tricky to work with, but the results were more impressive.

I was pleased to see some reasonable colours coming through too - perhaps I'd got the exposure better.

Finally, a quick processing of the saved moon images too for comparison.

Much better! A good evenings work, I wonder when the next one will come around! Looking out the bedroom window on the way to bed, I was pleased to see in a rather selfish way, that most of the sky was now obscured by cloud. My decision to pack away was vindicated.

A possible breakthrough

2008-01-23T08:08:00.000Z

I was looking back at my attempts to focus on a CD across the garden for practice. I was struck by how much more fuzzy the LPI image was than how it looked through the telescope. I also compared some images I'd taken with the digital camera held up to the eyepiece compared with the LPI camera. I'd also found images others had taken on the web with the LPI camera, and they all looked far better than my images. OK - some of them had much better telescopes than mine, but not all of them had.

So during yet another wet day, I took a careful look at the LPI camera. There isn't that much to it really. There is a dust cap to take off, and that's it. If you look down the tube, you can just about see a small electrical chip, but there is no lens or anything.

So anyway, I wondered how the digi camera would compare with the Meade LPI, if my hunch that the digital camera was outperforming the LPI direct by some stretch.

So - another set up, focusing on the same CD. I took a short digi film through a reasonably high powered eyepiece. Then I got out the LPI again. I had another quick look at it, and wondered if there was a possibility there might be some dust or something on the CCD. Just in case I pushed one end of the lens cleaning cloth gently down the tube and gave a gentle twist just in case.

Then I fired up the laptop and got the software running. A few tweaks on the new flexible focusing knob, and I was astonished. The image was vastly better than before. There was so much detail evident I could hardly believe it. I mean - just compare the before and after:

Before:

After:

I mean - tell that isn't at least 100% better!

I didn't even bother taking the movie off the camera for comparison. Of course now I'm itching to try this out on something celestial, but the weather is not cooperating. There was a brief patch of clear sky monday night, and I rushed to get the telescope out and set up. Even as I was carrying out though the 4 or 5 stars I could see were fading. By the time I had it ready, there was a slow drizzle which gradually got worse until it was full rain.

Sigh, this waiting lark is tough!

Back on the moon

2008-01-15T13:35:00.000Z

I spent a while in the afternoon practising focusing on a CD stuck to a fence post on the other side of the garden. This, after trying to focus on an advert for a shower - which written on paper had started to dissolve in the rain and had a tendency to ripple in the wind. It was rather fun to suddenly see a mostly unclothed woman jump into view - and I had to check I wasn't focusing on a neighbours house or something. Anyway, when the sellotape failed for the 3rd time, I switched to the CD and blue-tack. I got to the stage where I could almost read the bar code, despite only just being able to see the CD itself. The focusing with the CCD camera was particularly awkward and difficult to get right, and it didn't look as clear as through a lens. A new release of the software downloaded helped a bit too, and I'm hoping my flexible focusing knob will help when it arrives.

Despite it raining for most of the day, it suddenly cleared last night which I noticed whilst driving to the shop to stock up on a load of food items. I just knew it would have clouded over my the time I got back, but no!

The laptop was in use by its owner, so I went back to the simpler digital camera and adapter thing but on the new telescope. The moon looked great through the newer optics (it had been "new" when I first got this telescope). It was interesting to watch the heat haze and atmospheric ripples despite how cold my feet were feeling. It shows up quite well in this clip, and you can hear the wind too occasionally.

I got some reasonable pictures from this after a bit of stacking.

I also tried Mars again - but the results really weren't much better than before. Then the haze started to come in and I decided to go in a warm up my feet.

Venus in the morning

2008-01-12T09:41:00.000Z

Last night was pouring rain, but waking early this morning I had a quick look outside the window and I could see stars, so I decided to get up at about 6:30am with the first faint glow of the sun starting to appear on the horizon.

The sky was clear enough to auto-align the telescope and it picked out a couple of bright stars I could see. It was still quite a way off on them though requiring some more calibration.

I could see Venus behind a tree, and couldn't work out if it was rising or setting. Anyway, I got the telescope onto it, and could finally see it as it came out from behind a tree branch.

I switched to the camera and tried to get it focused. The software focusing guide still doesn't seem to work on the software I have so its a lot of trial and error.

Eventually I got some pictures though.

They still weren't what I was hoping for, as focusing is really tricky. I'm hoping the flexible focusing knob I ordered will help with this when it comes.

A frustrating evening

2008-01-10T16:00:00.000Z

I got home to relatively clear skies. My the time I'd had tea, got the children into bed and so on, the sky had cloudy over completely. Then it started to clear and I could see Mars and bits of Orion. I got out the telescope but there was only the odd star visible at a time as clouds drifted passed, so not enough to try aligning it.
Then it clouded over again. About an hour later it was starting to clear in patches again and I could clearly see Orion, so I got out the laptop and the camera attachment.

By the time I had things assembled the cloud had drifted in again and covered it up. Half an hour later when I looked out it was starting to clear a bit again, and for a time it was clear enough to pick some stars for alignment. Then with Mars in the frame I took some images, but they weren't great - there seems to have been a fair bit of high level thin cloud. I think its also overexposing.

It did give me a chance to try it with a 2x barlow lens which looked promising. I also managed to try out Saturn again, but I couldn't really get the focusing right, and it kept drifting in and out of the haze.

So after several hours in the will it, won't it clear mode, I decided to give up and go to bed!

My first guided telescope.

2008-01-08T09:54:00.000Z

So with Christmas over, and no telescope found under the tree, I decided its time to buy something more serious. Like a number of hobbies, you can spend an inordinate amount of money on equipment without trying really. In the end I opt to buy a Meade ETX 125 PE. This is partly because it currently has an offer which includes a number of additional lenses and filters which adds considerably to the value. It has on it a list of things I wanted which includes

A GOTO system - after alignment you can tell it to go and locate a given star or planet.
A computer interface allowing possible remote control of the telescope from a PC.
A reasonable diameter mirror (127mm/5inch).
The pack of eyepieces, which range from 40mm (47x mag) to 6.4mm (297x). There is also a barlow lens which allows the doubling of all above magnification.
A built in equatorial wedge - this allow the telescope to track in a plane the same as the stars rotate in - so only one direction of track required. Normally it works in Alt-Az mode - which means it has two motors one that moves it around in a circle, and the other is up and down.

I also bought a power tank, which is like a big battery - and can be used for jump starting cars, but supplies enough power to keep the telescope functioning for a number of hours. Finally a small CCD camera which drops in, in place of the eyepiece and can be used for basic moon, planet and other imaging. It can also be used to guide the telescope in conjunction with the computer interface above.

Wonder of wonders, after I get home and play with my new toy in the daylight, the skies clear as it gets dark and I can try it for real.
I tried just looking through it initially, and it was a lot clearer. Then I tried aligning it in auto mode. This is very clever, although it takes 2-3 minutes, which if like me you have to do a few times gets boring quickly. First it finds north, then it works out what the tilt and inclination is, and then it selects where it thinks two stars are it can align with. Well the first star it picked I had no idea - it could have been one of several. I found out later pressing the ? button tells you what star it is thinking it should be, and with stellarium running nearby, this helps a lot. I also found you can skip stars that might not be visible. It is rather sensitive to being interrupted while slewing though. Also realigning without power cycling seems to give rather odd results.

Also so far, the alignment isn't very exact, by picking two widely separated stars it seems to improve. You end up somewhere nearby what you're interested in, but its not always even in the field of view. I'll have to recheck I have input all the correct details.

Mars when viewed was a lot clearer, as were some other things I looked at. After that I spent a while installing the camera software and working out how to get that to go. Then I tried some imaging. This required the laptop close by so the USB cable would reach, and a bit of experimentation.

The results were not too bad, but not as good as I'd hoped - but all this was within a few hours of getting the kit out of the box, and learning how everything worked from scratch. So I guess I should carry on and see what can be done.

Mars was still readily accessible.

Saturn rose - but due to the location I'd picked it rose in between the branches of a tree, and there was intermittent cloud cover, so I was lucky to get anything.

I tried a deep sky object too - the Orion nebula in this case.

Not bad I suppose altogether for day 1.

The moon by day

2007-12-30T14:53:00.000Z

Well, there has been another sequence of dark and gloomy nights, so observation chances have been few. However after getting up the other morning I noticed the moon still in the sky at gone 9:00am. I wondered what sort of image that might make. It was quite low in the sky by the time I got things assembled. I took a single picture of it through the telescope. The contrast wasn't very good though.

I tried the movie mode, and stack up a number of images, together with a bit of post processing - and the results were somewhat better.

Doing even more processing and tweaking balances and so on, I got something close to a night image.

Getting to know the moon

2007-12-24T22:37:00.000Z

After some more shots of the moon, as it waxes to its full extent, I thought it was time to get to know what I was getting images of. I therefore decided to sort out a few features on the moon and see if I could identify them. Taking one of the better large images I set about annotating it with a few of the more obvious features.

Using a number of websites, I was pleased that most of the features I found were visible in my picture. The moon apparently moves around a bit, so it is possible to see more than 50% of it over time. Its necessary to flip the image around a bit to undo what the telescope optics do, but here is the result.

More of the moon

2007-12-22T21:49:00.000Z

A clear night appeared after a number of rather overcast, not to say wet evenings. The moon was high and nearly full, so I took the chance to try some more photos.

It is well known that a full moon is not so photogenic as a half moon. You don't get the crater shadows appearing so it is not as clear. Anyway - the results weren't too bad, but the breakthrough tonight was in the processing.

I used registax to stack multiple images from a video of the moon, and this works well. The only trouble is registax can be very slow on the processing. I'd experimented with different forms of conversion from .MOV to .AVI with mixed results. I found a couple of converters that work, 1 produced very grainy results, the other was better. However sometimes it could take over an hour to process a 30s clip. One time I left if running all night to finish.

I looked around for other options, and found the Rad video tools which have a conversion facility as part of the kit. It also has a couple of useful options whereby I can exclude the sound (which isn't needed obviously) and it also allows for an uncompressed output format. I tried this out, and got HUGE AVI files - 700Mb from a 23Mb .MOV file. This is ok, as I only keep the .AVI as temporary files while processing. The good news, registax loves the uncompressed format, and screams through the frames in comparison to the compressed images. The whole thing can now be processed in a few seconds - maybe a minute! Rad video tools is now my new best friend!

Waxing larger

2007-12-20T08:26:00.000Z

A number of cloudy nights, and last night was no exception. However early on it was relatively clear and I thought the moon might be worth a couple more snaps.
I'm not sure if it was cloud or mist, but you could see bands of it moving relatively quickly past the moon. It was almost transparent, but not welcome even so! The good thing about using video to capture is that you can take the best frames. You're not dependant on a long exposure that can be ruined by a single glitch.

Anyway, the moon was relatively high in the sky, so that must help with atmospheric distortion. Its also waxed a little so different things are visible.

Anyway, enough with the chatter, lets see what a few hours processing and stacking produced.

Some processing artifacts of the processing are visible on lower and upper parts, but the craters come out pretty well. I must look up some moon maps so I can recognise some of the features I've captured.

Moon shot

2007-12-17T13:42:00.001Z

Well my telescope and camera are pretty primitive, so the deep sky objects are a bit hit and miss - well ok, they're mostly miss. However the moon is much more tractable - its a lot brighter to start with so doesn't need long exposures.
I tried a couple of shots of the moon with just the camera, mounted on an attachment to keep it still, and the results aren't really that impressive. The camera boasts a 3x optical zoom, but even then its a bit tiny.

Even when zoomed in, its not that good a picture.

The next obvious step is to attach the camera to the telescope and take a picture that way. They come out somewhat better as you might hope.

Its not bad, buts its a little fuzzy around the edges.

However, rather suprisingly you can get some very good images attaching the camera to the telescope and using its video mode. The moon soon drifts out of view, so you can only get about 30-45 seconds worth of images, but they are quite good (although they are taken at 640x480 resolution). What you do is take the video, load it onto the computer, convert from .MOV to .AVI file, and then use the program Registax to process it. This program will lock onto a feature and track it as it moves from frame to frame. Then, it will stack together all the good frame images into one, so reducing noise, and then gives you the option to sharpen it up.
The results are pretty good I have to say, even though I'm still learning what half the settings do.

Now that's more like it!

Some star pictures

2007-12-16T23:27:00.000Z

I tried to use the new found techniques to get some pictures of stars - but the equipment wasn't really up to the job. The best I managed was of the Pleiades, which at least gave something half way recognisable. I took a number of images (33 I think) and stacked them with Deep Sky Stacker.

I've still got a lot to learn about the software, but to get much further with deep sky images I probably need something better than my point and shoot digital camera. At best it will take a 3 second exposure, which is not enough to capture anything faint.

On the other hand, in 3 seconds the stars move very little, so the lack of equatorial mount and drive and not noticeable!

Finding out how others do it

2007-12-07T18:58:00.000Z

After my last experiences with Astronomy and telescopes, I decided that photographing things might be more fun. At least I could show the results rather than just describe them.

Now I'd tried before (March 2007) taking some pictures with a telescope and digital camera of a lunar eclipse. This was a very Heath Robinson setup. The telescope is a very basic reflector that I'd borrowed. The camera was a standard point and shoot digital, hand held up to the eyepiece of the telescope. I was actually very pleased with the results given it was a spur of the moment thing. I worked pretty well until the eclipsing happened too much, then the light levels fell, and I couldn't hold the camera still enough to take anything reasonable without a lot of camera shake and the camera waving a red handed blurring gonna happen sort of icon at me.

So - given the very basic nature of the setup it looked like things were possible.

Having got the telescope out again now the nights are getting darker and more accessible, I thought I'd have another go. Bad news, the moon is not visible from my garden, and waning fast. However there are some other things to take photos of. Mars is very prominent right now, and I had a go at taking a photo of that.

No chance, wobblesville Arizona, population you... Pressing the shutter button it was a good 2-3 seconds before the click finished, and there was just a blurred mess.

Well OK, it was probably a silly idea, I should wait for the moon again perhaps.

However flicking through some astronomy web sites and shops, wondering idly how much it would be to buy a 'scope of my own, and what do you get for your money I spotted some interesting bits on astrophotography.

For not very much money (well £20 or so) you can get a metal gizmo that sits on the eyepiece and has a couple of metal bits sticking out that allow you to screw the cameras tripod adaptor into, and suddenly the telescope and camera move as one! See the attached - if I had two cameras you could even see the camera in situ.

This was much easier to work with. You can even use the LCD display instead of the view finder. The only issue is that in the dark, without the camera attached, you stand a fairly reasonable chance of poking your eye out with the protruding metal spike - but hey, its a small price to pay.

A clear night arrived, and I had a play around. The results were not altogether as good as I had hoped, but at least there were results.


Mars	Mars again

Somewhere in Orion, or maybe the Pleiades	Another Mars

Well - the results are not stellar (groan) but they are at least there.

Then I had the good fortune to notice that the Nottingham Astronomy Society were having a talk by a visiting speaker titled "Digital Astrophotography for Dummies" by Kevin Kilburn. I could perhaps pick up a few tips, perhaps join the society, get to use their 24inch reflector. At the very least I could find out if I was on the right lines. So off to check it out, on a cold, very wet night to see if Kevin has any tips I might use.

WOW!

He was getting some stunning photographs without any telescope at all, but using a digital SLR camera on a equitorial mount. The secret was to use a digital camera and take multiple exposure, and then use photoshop or similar to remove the street light pollution, and stack the multiple images on top of each other.

The results are excellent. I was well and truly inspired as I left the meeting. He was getting pictures better than a lot of professionals, and using them to propose new theories about the moon and other things. I mean - just look at this example of M31, the Andromeda galaxy, our nearest neighbouring galaxy. Many of these were taken from his own back garden, from which he can see 12 street lights.

This could end up as a relatively expensive night out in the long run...

First Steps

2007-11-30T18:56:00.000Z

Put me firmly in the class of fair weather astronomers...

I have borrowed a fairly basic reflecting telescope to do some observing. Last Friday was an excellent night to try it out. Although I live in a rather light polluted area, the night sky was crisp and clear. Bright pin pricks of light could clearly be seen through the upstairs window. I went downstairs and stepped outside for a better look, and after a sharp intake of breath, I dashed back in - COLD COLD COLD!!
Observation was terminated before it had really begun.

However, last night, there were only a couple of minor squibs of cloud about, but on the whole things looked pretty good, and the temperature outside was much better. This was much more the way to do it, OK so it would require a coat, but not necessarily Arctic survival gear.

So I went back inside, and lugged out the telescope, set up the tripod, picked the least powerful of the lenses and found Mars with the spotter scope. After a while, I managed to get it well fairly centred, but realised that the cross-hairs which seem like such a good idea, when viewed at night, are black on a black background, with little light, are not in the slightest bit visible in the dark! Even with the least powerful eyepiece, the image has to be pretty much in the centre of the spotter scope to find it.

I went back in to get a more powerful eyepiece, there is only so much you can juggle in one trip...
I installed the eyepiece, and after a bit more hunting managed to re-find Mars, and it agreeably became a small disc, jumping around all over the place as I tried not to touch the telescope and induce any more wild oscillations. Have you ever seen Lissajous Figures on an oscilloscope (do they still use those?) - well that's pretty much what Mars looked like most of the time.

OK - time to try something a bit more tricky, how about that comet 17P/Holmes. I could be like a real astronomer, and casually drop into the conversation my cutting edge observations on the night sky. "Have you seen 17P/Homes perchance? No - oh what a shame..."

I'd already loaded the data into Stellarium and so fired up the laptop on the kitchen table. OK - so its approximately overhead at the moment. If I starts a Mars, and a line up, past Cassiopeia and a bit to the right, yeah that should work.

Went back outside with a couple of the constellations roughly memorised... and WHAT THE...??????

The night sky was now completely overcast, not a single celestial object visible! In the 3-4 minutes I'd been inside a cloud layer had just appeared, as if from nowhere, covering from horizon to horizon. I swear, it was like being on a prank TV program! How did that happen? I went inside and out again to see if I'd been mistaken, but no - complete overcast.

I left the telescope out, and checked occasionally, and about an hour later I could see Mars again in a clear patch of sky. Maybe the overcast was a transient feature. I refocused and re-centred, and then ran inside to get the highest mag. eyepiece. A quick squint to see if it was still centred, and as I watched it there, it slowly and majestically faded completely from view! The overcast was back! This time for good - I wondered if there was anything on TV...

Entering the world of Astrophotography

2007-11-30T13:07:00.000Z

This blog is a spin off from my open university one, where I first got a little enthused about the idea of taking pictures of stars. As I started exploring more and more, it got a little off topic, so I thought I'd start a new one about my trials with astronomy.