Just starting into astrophotography, but getting a little discouraged by photos that are always washed out? Don’t be, the following is a typical long exposure image shot without the use of a filter.

This is the same image after having the colour space remapped (a process that literally takes less than a minute on a typical computer with the right software).

The only thing left to do to create the final picture is to stack a series of these images in software such as Registax and maybe do some final adjustments of the colour space.

So it was a little cool – but almost no wind – and properly dressed – not bad at all and well worth it. Jackie and Ben braved the cold also. Crisp and clear – for the most part – we did have some clouds roll in for about 15 minutes – then they vanished – in all we got about 2 hours of very clear skies before the clouds came back for good.

I took a little extra care on polar aligning and also, thanks to Mike, had new batteries for my illuminated guiding eyepiece. I spent most of the time imaging (6 minute exposures) the Flaming Nebula in Orion – then, before packing up, took a couple of shots of Orion’s sword again.

New images of the Flame Nebula, the Orion Nebula, and the Pleiades have been added to Tim Harpur’s astro-photo gallery.

Sunspots 933 and 930 (on far eastern side) are about to disappear for the next two weeks, so today seems like the last day for taking pictures. A few years ago I purchased an IR-Pass filter in error. Rather than returning it, I decided to keep it for a “rainy-less” day. So, I set up my Orion this time powered by my Sphinx mount to eliminate tracking problems mentioned in the first blog (here) of 2007. I was curious to see what effect the filter would have.

Equipment: Orion ED 100, SONY DSC-V1, Scopetronix 40mm on Sphinx mount

I removed the IR-Pass filter and threaded my IR-Block filter onto the diagonal. This filter is supposed to be used with digital cameras. However, I didn’t see any noticeable difference between the image of the sun I took today with the ones I took previously. Maybe I’ll see the difference with and without the IR-Block filter next time I image the moon.

Equipment Orion ED 100, SONY DSC-V1, Scopetronix 40mm on Sphinx mount

Sunspot 933 is visible in both, but not as easily discernible on the IR-Block. If you look closely you can see Sunspot 930 on the far eastern edge of both images near the “equator”, ENE with respect to Sunspot 933. The latitudes of the spots in the two images differ because of camera-diagonal alignment.

COLD
  CRISP
    CLEAR
      and very CALM

The seeing was very steady and clear – all four stars of the Trapezium in Orion were clearly visible in my 80mm achro guide scope – the view in my Onyx 80mm apo was pinpoint sharp. I quickly set up for imaging – only to discover the battery for my illuminated guiding eyepiece was dead – I had to do my imaging unguided with exposures limited to about 1 minute. It wasn’t the cold – it was my dead camera battery that ended my observing session (after about 3 hours).

No wolves to keep me company – but there were a lot of geese making quite a racket.

The following images are single frame shots – quickly processed – and drastically reduced in size – I will post the stacked and fully processed verions to my gallery in the next day or two. All imaging was done using my new Onyx APO 80mm refractor and Canon Digital Rebel XTi mounted prime focus.

Despite the cold I am planning on doing another run to Binbrook Saturday if weather holds for clear skies.

Great Orion Nebula

Flaming Nebula (and the Horsehead Nebula) in Orion

The CSC was partially correct for the evening. I met up with Jackie already at the alternate site on Tyneside. The cirrus clouds were just dissipating, though there was still some high level ice crystals which magnified the glow around the moon. But the humidity stayed reasonable until about 11pm and the heavy winds that were forecast were never more than a light breeze. So considering the weather we’ve been having over the past few months, it was a reasonable observing night.

I set up while Jackie was observing with her new binos. Once I was polar-aligned, I focused on Orion and its glorious nebula. At that time, a friend who’s interested in joining a local astronomy group joined us. Jackie did her usual enthusiastic job of promoting our wonderful HAA club while we both tried to show him some of the constellations and interesting objects that can be seen with binos and scopes.

I also got a new digital camera for Christmas which I set up on a camera tripod. I took a couple of 15 sec exposures of Orion, the moon and Pleiades. Only the Orion shots were passable and even at 15 sec, star trails were evident. I guess the next present will be a camera attachment for my tracking mount – thank goodness my birthday is this month {grin}.

After finding some old standby’s to look at and trying a couple of other objects that I’ve only occassionally seen, frost started to form on the outside of the dewshield around 11:15. So before it started to collect on the scope and ourselves, we packed it in.

It was a joy to get out observing after the long drought. Even better was to have some people to share it with. HAA is a great club.

As a footnote, I went back outside briefly at around 2am and noticed a huge halo around the moon from the ice crystals in the upper atmosphere. It appeared to cover an area of about 30 degrees (if I had been more experienced and thought about it while I was outside, I would have made an accurate measurement instead of guessing after the fact). Not good conditions for astronomical viewing, but an interesting object just the same.

This is a continuation of my previous blog of Jan 1. Jan 2 was another fine morning for imaging sunspots and sorting out the problems encountered mentioned in my previous blog. Good news and bad news about the RA motor drive on my Orion German Equatorial mount. The good news is that it now works, sort of. The bad news is that it only works when I slew to the east. It won’t slew to the west which means it won’t track a celestial objects. Back to plan B used yestereday, ie setting a 10-sec delay, manually pre-positioning the frame, then clicking the remote shutter and pray that when the picture is taken 10 seconds later, the spots of interest will be centred.

First picture is of entire sun using my V1. Sunspots 830 and 834 are clearly visible, whereas 833 is almost invisible. I increased the camera optical zoom to its maximum, 4X, and took another picture where all spots are easily discernible, as well as a faint fourth. However, that image is in my Gallery at HAA.

V1 image details: ISO 200, F3.5, 1/1000 sec at 9:59 am EST.

Second picture is a closeup of sunspot 330, the furthest west of the cluster. I chose it because of the difficulty of focusing the others. Now if I had used a reliable motorized mount, the issue would be moot. OK, I’m getting ahead of myself. The forecast for Jan 3 is for clear skies in the morning. I hope to use my tried and true Sphinx mount and see if the pictures turn out better. Stay tuned. Oh, by the way, did you notice that I set the colour setting on my H5 to “Natural” and obtained a more colourful effect?

H5 image details: ISO 200, F3.7, 1/15 sec at 10:39 am.

I had been waiting for a day with clear skies and when sun spots were to reappear. Finally, I got a chance to use some of my Christmas “presents”. One was a 14mm Scopetronix Wide Angle eyepiece with built-in 28mm threads for a Nikon camera. Unfortunately my cameras, a SONY DSC-V1 accepts 52mm threads via a 45.5 mm converter tube (obtained from Scopetronix) and a SONY DSC-H5 which accepts 58mm threads via a SONY-supplied 56mm converter tube. To use the Scopetronix threaded 14mm eyepice, I used more of my presents, two step-down rings which I ordered and received prior to Christmas. A 37-28mm ring and a 52-37 ring allowed me to take images of the sun today with my Orion 100mm ED suitably equipped with an Orion sun filter. Unfortunately, I hadn’t used this equipment for about two years. I polar-aligned as best I could. However, I couldn’t get my RA motorized drive to work after plugging into AC via a 6v DC converter with correct plug. When the clouds arrived I solved the problem during the disassembly. It helps if you push in the “phone” connector to the motor drive all the way in and hear it click.

My first image was of the entire sun using a Scopetronix Maxview 40mm as practice. Difficult to focus using an LCD in daylight. I then replaced the 40mm with the 14mm eyepiece and took a host of images with the 5 MP SONY DSC-V1. Then I replaced the V1 with my 7 MP DSC-H5 with 3″ LCD hoping for easier focusing. Alas, it too was still too bright despite blocking as much of the sun via a bath towel wrapped over my head. However, I took many images using a 2 sec timer delay which made timing of the sun’s image into the centre of the display much easier than the 10 sec delay of the V1. When the clouds came it was time to disassemble and watch the Rose Bowl parade. During commercials I excitedly examined each image. The images using the 14mm revealed four major spots and over 40 others in incredible detail. Curious that although the images of the major spots were in different locations of various image frames, the location of the 40 others didn’t change. What a major disappointment when I realized I had focused on something – dust ? or blemishes ? – on the eyepiece or perhaps on the objective lens or on the sun filter. Oh well, I’ll try again tomorrow. In the meantime you can see my feeble efforts of today and judge for yourself.

V1 image details: ISO 200, F3.5, 1/800 sec at 10:15 am EST.

I “accidently” experimented with the light source setting on the H5. My previous photo-shoot using the H5 was indoors using incandescent light source setting. I’ll fix that next time too. H5 image details: ISO 200 F3.5, 1/200 sec at 10:36 am EST

When I read, yesterday (Dec. 19th), that the Shuttle would undock from the ISS at 5:09pm EDT I wondered if we?d be lucky enough to see them, together. A quick check of www.heavens-above.com revealed they?d be right overhead at 6pm.

Sure enough, as Gail and I scanned the sky from our deck, a light as bright as Venus but with a yellow tint came out of the cloud bank over Lake Erie and headed toward us.

As it closed, we could see there were two lights, one close behind the other. 10×50 binoculars showed the separation to be about 10 arc minutes. I?d be interested to know the actual distance in metres (or kilometers?), at that time, between the two.

Another thing we noticed was how much larger and brighter the ISS appeared compared to our last sighting in the Spring. Also, the impression of speed was enhanced by seeing the two objects chase across the sky, as opposed to a single light. And, knowing there were nine people up there made it all the more impressive. Safe landing STS-116!

Finally! The sun has some activity. Readers of this website will know from Mike Spicer’s post about a flare that the sun spit out toward the Earth. Today was the first chance that I had to get my PST solar telescope out to have a look at the sun. I was pleased to see that there was something more interesting to see than a clear disk in Hydrogen alpha light.
Just outside of the centre of the sun’s disk is a large sunspot. It is certainly not the biggest spot that I have seen, but it was respectable, considering that there has been no activity there for weeks. In hydrogen alpha light, you can see the spot as a dark blotch surrounded by a very large irregularly shaped lighter area. Interestingly, I could tease out more details if I slightly de-tuned the filter. This brought out detail in the bright area around the sunspot.
The edge of the solar disk was not idle either. There were several very large flares that I could see that expanded out into space. In the past few weeks, there might have been only one or at most two flares. Now I could see lots! I wonder if this is the beginning of the sun starting its active cycle as it heads toward a maximum in the next 5 years or so.
The more that I use the PST, the better I get at seeing fine detail on the surface of the sun.Next, I have to consider imaging through the PST, however, the biggest problem is that I need my computer to capture and process the image. Unfortunately, it is difficult to see the screen of the telescope in bright sunlight. Talk about an ironic situation for an astronomer!
The PST is a great little telescope and it can be set up in seconds. It is the ultimate ‘grab-and-go’ telescope! I am glad I bought it.