Red Shift

Oops!

2012-02-06T10:40:00.002Z

About 18 months ago on a good imaging night, I was trying to squeeze as much time as possible out of an object but obviously not paying too much attention to the position of the telescope. The USB connector of the Starlight Express Lodestar guide camera hit the pier.

At the time it didn't appear that any damage had been caused.

However, this past Friday, I pushed the USB cable into the camera and the camera's USB connector pushed into the camera body, inaccessible.

So the slow motion impact had weakened the connector which over time, finally failed.
It has to go back to Starlight Express for a repair estimate. I'll be off line for a few days or even maybe a couple or three weeks.

It's a bloody good guide camera, much missed :¬)

Tek care
Dave

Replacing the motherboard in an EQ6 Pro mount

2012-01-30T14:52:00.001Z

In a previous post, I mentioned that the GoTo handset of my mount had packed in and I was using a EQDirect adapter along with EQMac to point the telescope. This worked on and off for a couple of nights but eventually, that stopped working as well. As I had previously thought, it wasn't the GoTo handset at fault in the first instance but the mounts motherboard which obviously had an effect on EQDirect also. The mount has been outside under all weathers for almost 5 years now, so its not done bad at all to last this long.

Today, I received a replacement motherboard at a cost of £99 plus £10 p&p ordered from Opticstar. It only takes a few minutes to replace and consists of removing the four outer cross head screws that hold the access panel in place, in fact that panel and the motherboard are replaced as a single unit. Three wire connectors have to be disconnected from the board which can then be lifted out, the reverse is done to fit the new.

The access panel

Access panel and motherboard come as one replaceable unit.

The three wire connectors

The two square objects are the stepper motors, the interior of the mount is clean, dry and rust free after almost 5 years outside.

The new board and panel in situ and ready for use.

EQMac and Stellarium

2011-12-21T09:29:00.002Z

T'other night after obtaining additional Ha subs of M42, at 00:22 UT, I moved onto NGC 2244 to capture further SII of the Rosette nebula to augment the Sulphur signal in this image.

At 01:12 I decided to do a meridian flip, the telescope inverted OK but for some reason the GoTo handset went dead, nothing on the display. I shut down on one of the best clear and steady nights I'd had for some months. Sods law.

The following morning I needed to confirm whether it was the electronics in the handset or inside the EQ6 Pro mount. A couple of years ago I purchased a EQDIR adapter my intention was to control the mount directly from the laptop using EQMOD which runs on the Windows platform. I'm a Mac user and even though I can run Windows on my Mac, I really prefer not to, so I really didn't try it.

Since purchasing the adapter EQMac has come on the scene and as it's name suggests it runs on the Mac platform and is David Hulse's software for directly controlling the Skywatcher and certain Atlas mounts from the laptop. EQMac is still under development and is used in conjunction with the planetarium software Stellarium.

When connected up to my EQ6 Pro, EQMac instantly found the mount and instantly binned the handset.

As darkness fell, I started it all up and used Stellarium to point the scope, after 20 minutes of playing around, I'd managed to sync on a few stars and pointed at M1 the Crab nebula in Taurus. This heavily cropped image complete with cosmic rays is a quick process of 2 x 1200 sub exposures with a Ha filter, that's all the time I had before the clouds rolled in. If you're a Mac user EQMac is well worth a try and David is prompt at answering email questions.

M42 Orion nebula in Ha, new project started.

2011-10-30T10:28:00.000Z

I spent a couple of hours getting some OIII data for NGC1499 last night. It took me about 40 minutes to line up on the nebula, I was doing a frame and focus through the camera but couldn't see any of nebula, so I thought I was well off and had to hunt round. Then I had a brain wave - pretty painful that - I removed the OIII filter and put the Ha one in place. Suddenly I was swamped with nebulosity. Apparently there's not much OIII in this area and what there is, is very, very faint. It looked just like a star field even with a 20 minute exposure. Anyway 2 hours of subs obtained. I then noticed Orion was up and temptation took a grip. I pointed at M42 until the clouds rolled in.

I got 15 x 60 subs and threw 3 of those away and obtained 6 x 300 subs also. This is my latest work in progress, I still need more subs so this is just a review of last nights work. My intention is to add further exposures, so sometime in the 22nd century it'll be done.

Here's a quick look. 12 x 60 and 6 x 300. This object as you may be aware can cause processing problems due to the HDR, High Dynamic Range. The trapezium stars burn out so easily while the rest of the nebula is in comparative darkness. That's why I took short exposures to control that burn, the longer exposures will exposure the faint stuff.

In PixInsight, feed in two or more HDR exposures and it'll work things out. Then it's just a case of processing it as normal.

Takahashi FSQ-106ED at prime focus f5 and a QSI 583 wsg CCD camera mounted on a EQ6 Pro mount guiding with a Starlight Express Lodestar camera and PHD. Capture and calibration with Nebulosity and processed with PixInsight.

NGC 7000 North America nebula and IC5070 Pelican nebula in Ha

2011-10-18T13:10:00.000+01:00

At long last I've finished this mosaic, it consists of 6 frames each made up of 11 x 1200 sub exposures giving a total of 22 hours. Interestingly, the last frame at top right was taken late September in what has been described as an Indian Summer, in the early to late evening the ambient air temperature was 20° Celsius. I was unable to cool the QSI camera down to -20°C and had to make do at -15°C.

This final image is about 27.5 million pixels and 52.3 Mb in size.

They are one or two interesting features in this area of sky, the close crops below detail a few of them. Click on each image for an enlarged view. The first shows on the left an area I call the Ferret, then the dark oval shape of the Pelican's eye and finally on the right, at the end of that elephant's trunk like extension, is the Herbig Haro object 555.

The image below shows one of Barnard's Dark nebula, B355, that chevron shaped object left of centre. In his book, A Photographic Atlas of Selected Regions of the Milky Way, E. E. Barnard passes comment on this "...is a dark, V-shaped spot (B355), pointing west, about 5' in length. This is perhaps an opening in the nebulosity".

Finally this last one I find interesting, it's at the bottom edge and shows the gorgeous tendrils of dark nebulae.

Those of you who have paid frequent visits in the past may know that I have problems with trains running on the East coast mainline at the bottom of my garden. The house vibrates and the mount vibrates. About 12 months ago I read in the news that a government minister stated that a further 20 extra trains a day would be using the line. Well it appears that is now the case. I'm losing sub after sub due to the increased frequency of rail traffic, consequently, I'm unable to post images as often as I would like. In fact it did cross my mind on more than one occasion to sell my camera kit and try to do some visual work. However, I've decided to carry on regardless and may try reduced sub exposures times. I'm also wondering if an active optic unit will help.

Tek care
Dave

P.S. I now have the OIII and SII data to get, starting next year.

NGC7000 and IC5070 in Ha, two pane mosaic

2011-06-08T15:14:00.023+01:00

A two pane mosaic of this well known area in Cygnus. IC 5070, the Pelican nebula on the right was imaged in August, 2010 and in fact has been posted on this blog in a previous posting. NGC 7000, North America nebula on the left, I took on the 8th, June 2011. There's about a 1/3 of a frame overlap the left pane was exposed for 7 x 1200" and the right, 5 x 1200"

This image will grow as I get more subs, it's a long term project.

As usual the focus, framing, acquiring and calibration was done in Nebulosity. The processing and mosaic building was done in PixInsight.

Edit 07.07.2011. Since posting the original image above, I've now added more sub exposures to the left hand pane. The North America part is now made up of 11 x 1200 subs, when clouds permit I'll add to the Pelican also. Then, I'll expand the frames outwards to cover a larger area and give the nebulae room to breath.

The image below includes the extra subs as you can see, I haven't cropped it. As a result of the second set of subs for the NAN, the frame is smaller. I'm unable to place the image on the sensor in the exact same place as previously. Obviously this will be rectified as overlapping frames are obtained.

Edit 31.07.2011. On the evening of the 30th, July, I captured further sub exposures for a third frame. It's made up of 11 x 1200 exposures.

Edit 08.08.2011. I've now got the subs for the fourth frame, just two more across the top then I'll post the image in a new posting.

Edit 15.08.2011. The fifth frame has now been obtained.

Edit the six frame mosaic is now complete and can be seen here.

Designation: NGC 7000 and IC 5070
Constellation: Cygnus.
Distance 1, 800 lights years.
Imaging scope - Takahashi FSQ-106ED f5 at prime focus
Camera - QSI 583 wsg CCD camera, sensor temperature -20° C
Filter - Astrodon 3 nm Ha
Autoguiding - OAG, Starlight Express Lodestar guide camera, EQ6 Pro mount and PHD guiding software.
Darks, Dark flats and Flats used.
Software - Nebulosity for focus, acquisition, aligning and stacking. Then processed in PixInsight

BBC1, Sky at Night June, 2011 edition

2011-06-06T11:49:00.006+01:00

My image of the North America and Pelican nebulae was used on this edition of the program, transmitted on BBC1 at 00:05.

I missed it, as I was elsewhere. It'll be repeated on the 9th and 11th June, 2011.

I hope to catch it then.

Edit 09. 06. 2011: I saw the extended version of the program transmitted at 7.30 pm, Thursday 9th June, 2011. A second photograph of mine the Crescent nebula in Ha was shown .

Supernova SN 2011dh in M51 the Whirlpool Galaxy

2011-06-04T11:33:00.008+01:00

Yesterday, I spent a day at Bempton Cliffs in East Yorkshire a sea birds reserve. There, I used my time trying to capture photos of one of my favourite birds the Fulmar.

On returning home, I'd received emails from the Webb Deep Sky Society and British Astronomical Association informing me of a type II core collapse supernova in M51 the Whirlpool Galaxy.

After spending a day walking up and down the cliff tops with a heavy camera and lens, I was knackered. But after learning of this event, I decided to set my imaging kit up and go for the supernova.

The object has been given the designation SN 2011dh and is located at Ra 13h 30m 5.0s and Dec +47° 10' 11.2". This galaxy is around 28 million light years away, so this event happened a long time ago but the light has just reached Earth these past few days. Ancient light!

The image and comparison image has been annotated with the capture details, just click on the image to enlarge it.

PN G75.5+1.7 Soap Bubble nebula

2011-05-15T11:22:00.003+01:00

I've posted this Ha image of the Crescent nebula before. However, after hearing about the Soap Bubble nebula, I decided to make a close search of my image to see if I could find any trace of the recently discovered Planetary nebula PN G75.5+1.7.

Click on either image to enlarge the view.

I've just got it in frame. Now I know where it is, next time imaging, I can accommodate it better within the frame.

NGC 2244 Rosette nebula mapped Ha_OIII_SII

2011-05-10T21:11:00.007+01:00

I've done another reprocess of the Rosette nebula, taking the original data and remapping it. This time the Ha is mapped to the Red channel, OIII to the Green and SII to the Blue. Giving a different look.

M51 Whirlpool galaxy, LRGB

2011-05-10T16:57:00.002+01:00

I've been sitting on this for sometime now. I think that the sunny weather we're having in the UK is just too good to waste at a computer. Also, I've had to tidy the garden up after my recent 3 weeks holiday away. It's back under control now.

The Luminance has been added to the RGB to produce this image, I can't say I'm 100% happy with it though. So it's back to the processing mill, I've also got some Ha exposures to add.

Barnard's star - HIP 87937 - animation

2011-05-01T19:45:00.027+01:00

I've been away from the observatory for the past 3 weeks on a holiday, so I've not been able to do any imaging. However, last night, I obtained two hours of Green channel subs for the M51, I'm still working on. Then in the early hours I continued with a project I started 12 months ago.

HIP 87937 a Red Dwarf in the constellation of Ophiuchus is also known as Barnard's star. This star has the largest proper motion of any star as seen from Earth, moving 10.35 arc seconds / year and was discovered by Edward Emerson Barnard, hence its common name.

The star has an apparent magnitude of 9.54 and lies at distance of about 6 light years.

I remember reading about this star as a young teenager, - that's a few years ago - If my memory serves me correctly, I think at that time, it was believed that Barnard's star may have had a planet in orbit due to a wobble the star had. That, I understand has now been discounted.

This animation illustrates the proper motion of the star. It's long term project which I started on the 13th April 2010. That was the date of the first exposure, the second exposure I took in the early hours of this morning 1st May 2011, so it's just a few days over 12 months between exposures.

Clicking on the image will enlarge the animation and start it.

Imaging scope - Takahashi FSQ-106ED f5 at prime focus
Camera - QSI 583 wsg CCD camera, sensor temperature -20C
Filter - Luminance
Autoguiding - OAG, Starlight Express Lodestar guide camera, EQ6 Pro mount and PHD guiding software.
Each single animated frame consists of 5 x 60 seconds subexposures with the necessary Flats and Dark Frames.
Software - Nebulosity for focus, acquisition, aligning and stacking. Then processed in PixInsight and the animation made in Photoshop CS5

Galaxies galore

2011-04-01T09:37:00.010+01:00

This image of M51 Whirlpool galaxy is made up of 30 x 600 subs a total of 5 hours exposure. It has been inverted to show the faint fuzzies lurking in the background.

Tim Walker the Webmaster for the Webb Deep Sky Society has identified a number of the fuzzies in the photograph.

PGC = Principal Galaxies Catalogue.

NGC = New General Catalogue.

IC = Index Catalogue.

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.

Astronomy Now - Picture of the month - April 2011

2011-03-16T13:15:00.003Z

The April issue of Astronomy Now magazine dropped through the letter box this afternoon. It was pleasing to see that my narrowband - HST palette - image of the Rosette nebula is Picture of the Month.

M51 Whirlpool galaxy a comparison

2011-03-15T09:53:00.004Z

This is my present project and what I think is an interesting comparison between two different images of the Whirlpool galaxy. The first was taken on the night of the 10th/11th March, 2011, through a Luminance filter. For the night of 13th/14th March, due to the moon, I switched to narrowband filters and imaged through a 3 nm Ha filter.

This is a heavy crop from the frame to show the detail, the knots of HII can be seen in the second image in comparison to the first. These are preliminary images my intention is to obtain further Luminance and some colour exposures to produce a final colour image. But, as I'm in the UK and we're famous for cloudy skies that could take some time.

Imaging Scope: Takahashi FSQ-106ED at f5 prime focus with QSI 583 wsg CCD camera
Astrodon Ha 3 nm and Luminance filters
Ha 12 x 1200 3 hours 20 minutes
L 9 x 600 1 hour 30 minutes
EQ6 Pro mount, autoguiding with Starlight Express Lodestar camera and PHD
Nebulosity for Frame/focus, acquiring and calibration and then onto PixInsight for final processing.

Rosette nebula in HST palette, reprocessed.

2011-03-01T16:37:00.024Z

For the past two weeks the sky has failed to perform, I've been waiting patiently for clear skies, so I could add further Oxygen and Sulphur exposures to this object. I decided to reprocess the original data to reduce the cyan at the centre of the nebula. The original is here.

This is only the second object I've produced in false colour the first being the Jellyfish nebula in Gemini, I've learnt a lot in processing these images. The Hydrogen Alpha overwhelms the Sulphur and Oxygen exposures so you always need proportionally more subs of SII and OIII.

Again, I've done a closer crop around the interesting Bok Globules.

Star spikes plugin and photo printing

2011-02-18T20:07:00.019Z

Being a refractor user, I had the idea of making diffraction spikes on some of the stars in my photos. I partially constructed a device for clamping around the dew shield to hold a pair of wires in place across the front element. I never finished it though and it was all a bit messy.

ProDigital software have come up with a plugin called Star Spike Pro, this adds the spikes and gives the user certain adjustments, dictating size, angle and spikiness etc. It runs in Photoshop, Windows only.

Now I'm a Mac user, and that option doesn't exist for me, so what does? I have Photoshop the Mac version, that's no good. But the system requirements name 4 image editors and "any editor program compatible with Photoshop 8BF style filter plugins"

Irfan View is one of the compatible editors, it's Windows only. I run Windows 7 on my Mac as a virtual machine via VMware Fusion. It's just a case of running Irfan View with Star Spikes plugin and passing the images through the plugin. It's a bit of a clunky workflow, the time consuming thing about it, is, starting Windows up.

The two images show some of the effects of the plugin. I mustn't go mad with this, I don't want spikes everywhere. If you'd like to see the image without the spikes it's here.

And now for something completely different. I keep a handwritten journal of my astronomy observations. It contains drawings and photographs of my images at various states of capture. It helps me keep track of my progression. I usually make a 8" x 6" print and paste it into the journal.
These prints I obtain from one of those Kodak kiosks that are situated in Boots the Chemist and other such places. All you have to do is load the digital image from your computer onto a USB stick and transfer it to a kiosk, where after a few moments the image is printed off.

Today, I selected two images, the two at the top which illustrate the first part of this post. I printed two off at the Kodak kiosk and then used one of the Boots' own kiosk machines, for their in house print service. After a 1 hour, you call and collect them. Whilst waiting, I had a pint of Copperbottom in The Plough

On examination the Kodak kiosk matt prints win hands down. The soft and subtle colours and gradations in the digital image are well reproduced and pleasing to look at. Whereas, the Boot's glossy prints are so contrasty that the subtleness and gradations have all but disappeared.

The price says it all though, the Kodak print is 79 pence for a 8" x 6" and the Boot's is 40 pence for a 9" x 6".

Tek care
Dave

Edit 13.04.2011: Star Spikes 2 has now been released and adds more functionality.

Bok globules in the Rosette nebula

2011-02-15T19:17:00.011Z

I've obtained more Sulphur sub exposures for the Rosette nebula in the HST palette as posted below.

The image is now made up of:

Sulphur 12 x 1200, 11 x 1200 Ha and 10 x 1200 OIII.

Instead of posting the full image with the new subs, I've cropped part of the nebula out to show the detail of the Bok Globules. To the left, I see a couple of Asian elephants on parade.

Rosette nebula in HST palette

2011-02-09T14:40:00.008Z

My latest work in progress, the Rosette nebula in Monoceros. A lovely looking nebula whether captured as a RGB or a false colour version.

In this instance, I used the HST palette, 7 x 1200 Sulphur - SII - to the Red channel, 11 x 1200 Ha to the Green and 10 x 1200 Oxygen - OIII - to the Blue.

The Sulphur exposures have been slow to come and of poor quality and took two nights. It needs more of the Sulphur and I suppose extra of the others wouldn't go amiss. That's what I like about astrophotography you can just keep adding. However, I need to live until I'm 150 years old to finish all the images I've started. The clear nights are few and far between.

Another NGC 2244 Rosette nebula in Ha

2011-01-19T15:50:00.017Z

Last night an almost full moon was in Gemini the home of IC443 Jellyfish, I had already obtained further Ha subs a couple of nights previous. I decided to move south west from the moon and into Monoceros.

The Rosette nebula resides here and this image is made up of 11 x 1200 a total of 3 hours 40 minutes exposure.

As an aside, I've recently purchased a 100 Ah deep cycle leisure battery to power my dew heaters. I had been using a 17 Ah jump start battery which didn't last long before the protection circuit of the Kendrick DigiFire 7 controller kicked in to stop the battery from being discharged too deeply. Shortly after that happens the front element starts to dew over. Discharging a battery too far can cause damage. The longest I've had this new battery running with the controller is 7 hours and there's still plenty of juice left.

Constellation: Monoceros. Distance 5,000 light years.

Imaging scope - Takahashi FSQ-106ED f5 refractor at prime focus

Camera - QSI 583 ws CCD

Sensor temperature -15° Celsius

Filter - Astrodon 3 nm Hydrogen Alpha

Autoguiding - OAG, Starlight Express Lodestar guide camera, EQ6 Pro mount and PHD guiding software.

Exposure - Luminance 11 x 1200 seconds

Darks, Dark Flats and Flats used.

Software - Nebulosity for focus, acquisition, aligning and stacking. Then processed in PixInsight.

IC443 Jellyfish nebula in HST palette

2011-01-11T19:50:00.069Z

This is my first narrowband colour image. I've used the bad Ha image with the silica gel diffraction spikes - see post but one below - and added the other two components which I obtained with my recently purchased SII and OIII filters. The image has been captured over three nights.

I've produced it in what's commonly called the HST palette. The SII is mapped to the red channel, Ha to the green channel and finally the OIII to the blue.

Takahashi FSQ-106ED with reducer QE 0.73X giving f3.6

QSI 583 wsg CCD camera

Exposure: Ha 7 x 1200, SII 12 x 1200, OIII 12 x 1200

Nebulosity to focus, frame, acquire and preprocess then into PixInsight to combine the three channels.

It's my intention to replace the Ha component as soon as possible.

Edit 110130: I have now obtained a new set of Ha exposures, 5 x 1200 and used it in the reprocessed mapped colour image. The diffraction spikes in the two bright stars are I think a lot better.

Takahashi FSQ-106ED and QSI 583 wsg adapters

2011-01-07T09:34:00.005Z

These annotated photographs may be of interest to anybody thinking of attaching a QSI 583 wsg CCD camera to a Takahashi FSQ-106ED refractor. They show the required adapters to achieve focus at prime focus f5 and with the reducer QE 0.73x at f3.6.

NB: I use the part numbers designated by Takahashi Europe for some reason these may differ in the USA and elsewhere as here. The TCD0774 adapter, I purchased from Oceanside Photo & Telescope.

Edit 28.08.2011 I have now added an extra adapter to the imaging train at prime focus, it is the Vari ring TKA31581. But first have a look at this image without the ring, it shows the focuser in the focus position extended to 22 mm.

The following photograph shows the location of the Vari ring, TKA31581.

The final photograph shows the location of the focuser in its focus position at prime focus with only an extension of 5 mm. The Vari ring is 17 mm long.

IC 443 Jellyfish nebula in Ha

2011-01-04T18:40:00.012Z

While watching Stargazing Live on BBC TV last night, I was imaging IC443 the Jellyfish nebula a supernova remnant in Gemini.

I fitted a 0.73x reducer to the Tak. I don't use the reducer very often, I wasn't certain of the focus position and the stars were completely out of focus and had the appearance of a large disc. A black, square shape appeared to be cut out of the star discs. However, the shape disappeared as I brought the star into sharp focus. So, I thought no more of it.

3 hours later, I had 9 subexposures of 20 minutes each. I threw two subs away as too soft. The two brightest stars in each frame had large diffraction spikes. The type of spikes caused by the diaphragms in camera lenses. A bit puzzling for a refractor without a diaphragm though.

A bit puzzling that was, until I started stripping down the telescope and saw a small square shaped packet of silica gel, stuck to the front lens element.

So, here is the image, complete with silica gel diffraction spikes, IC443 the Jellyfish nebula.

I'm going to redo this without the silica gel pack. I've now got the OIII and SII narrowband filters, I can now produce colour images, just got to get the filtered subs. Easier said than done. Oh, for clear skies.

Constellation: Gemini
Designation IC 443
Distance 5000 light years.
Imaging scope - Takahashi FSQ-106ED refractor with QE 0.73X reducer at f3.6
Camera - QSI 583 wsg CCD
Sensor temperature -20° Celsius
Filter - Astrodon 3 nm Hydrogen Alpha
Autoguiding - OAG, Starlight Express Lodestar guide camera, EQ6 Pro mount and PHD guiding software.
Exposure - Luminance 7 x 1200 seconds
Darks, Dark Flats and Flats used.
Software - Nebulosity for focus, acquisition, aligning and stacking. Then processed in PixInsight HT_HDRWT_HT_ACDNR_HT_Cv

Snowbound observatory

2010-12-01T08:29:00.004Z

A thick duvet of snow covers most of the country and has stopped my play. This is the view towards the mount from the warmth of the house, apparently it's going to be like this for 1 or 2 weeks. This coming weekend, I was going to Cambridge for the AGM of the Webb Deep Sky Society, I really don't think there's much chance of me getting there.

Edit 10.12.02: Due to the adverse weather conditions the AGM has now been cancelled until early next year.

B33 Horse head nebula in Hydrogen Alpha

2010-11-15T19:18:00.009Z

Last week I obtained a few Ha sub exposures of M33 the Triangulum galaxy. My intention was to add it to LRGB exposures and make a L/HaR/GB image. To say the least, I lost track of the moon, last night it was 1st quarter, I expected it to be a bit thinner, ahem. Must pay more attention. I took one test shot of M33 found it a bit too close to the moon for comfort and plodded onto one or two other objects before finally settling on B33, one of Barnard's Dark nebulae and probably his best known.

I used the 3 nm Ha filter for this, not because the moon was up, by this time it had set. I think this equine nebula looks better in B & W than colour.

For most of the day I've been without an internet connection and according to BT it was a major outage in my area. I've taken the time fiddling with this image to try and squeeze as much detail out as possible.

The Horse Head nebula is a dark cloud of dust and gas thrown into silhouette by IC 434 the emission nebula behind it. Off to the left is the aptly named Flame nebula.

Constellation: Orion.

Designation B33

Distance 1,500 light years.

Imaging scope - Takahashi FSQ-106ED f5 refractor at prime focus

Camera - QSI 583 ws CCD

Sensor temperature -20° Celsius

Filter - Astrodon 3 nm Hydrogen Alpha

Autoguiding - OAG, Starlight Express Lodestar guide camera, EQ6 Pro mount and PHD guiding software.

Exposure - Luminance 9 x 1200 seconds

Darks, Dark Flats and Flats used.

Software - Nebulosity for focus, acquisition, aligning and stacking. Then processed in PixInsight HT, ACDNR, HT HDRWT, HT, Curves

This image I reprocessed in Nebulosity and used StdDev 1.5 on the Dark frames and Flat frames when aligning and stacking.

NGC 2244 Rosette nebula in Ha

2010-11-02T17:10:00.013Z

I caught the Rosette nebula t'other morning when I was totally knackered after a full night of imaging. I'd finished with IC 410 ( 2 posts below ) and I was using a couple of pit props to keep my eyes open. Nevertheless, before stripping the kit down, I decided to squeeze off a couple of shots of the Rosette.

I've been toying with this image since capture and wasn't going to post it. Lately however, it's been slack imaging wise due to the default ( cloudy ) sky conditions. So here it is. It's a lovely nebula isn't it? Worth more time with other filters ( LRGB until I get the OIII and SII ), I could enjoy imaging this all winter trying to get a decent image. Of course it'll rise earlier as the year moves on.

NGC 2244 refers to the open star cluster at the centre, the Rosette actually has four NGC numbers 2237, 2238, 2239, and 2246. The dark structures in the image below are Bok globules, dense clouds of gas and dust, from whence new stars are formed.

Constellation: Monoceros. Distance 5,000 light years.

Imaging scope - Takahashi FSQ-106ED f5 refractor at prime focus

Camera - QSI 583 ws CCD

Sensor temperature -15° Celsius

Filter - Astrodon 3 nm Hydrogen Alpha

Autoguiding - OAG, Starlight Express Lodestar guide camera, EQ6 Pro mount and PHD guiding software.

Exposure - Luminance 2 x 1200 seconds

Darks, Dark Flats and Flats used.

Software - Nebulosity for focus, acquisition, aligning and stacking. Then processed in PixInsight.

IC 410 Emission nebula with the Tadpoles

2010-10-24T17:57:00.003+01:00

This is one that I've been wanting to do for some time, so I took the opportunity in the early hours of this morning. IC 410 is an emission nebula in Auriga with the 'Tadpoles' and at the centre the associated open star cluster NGC 1893.

Edit: 24/10/10 23:14 BST. Prior to imaging IC 410, I managed to get further sub exposures to add to NGC 6960 the supernova remnant I posted below. The reprocessed photograph is now made up of 9 x 1200 subs and can be seen here.

Designation: IC 410 Emission nebula and NGC 1893 Open star cluster

Constellation: Auriga.

Distance 12,000 lights years.

Imaging scope - Takahashi FSQ-106ED f5 at prime focus

Camera - QSI 583 wsg CCD camera, sensor temperature -15C

Filter - Astrodon 3 nm Ha

Autoguiding - OAG, Starlight Express Lodestar guide camera, EQ6 Pro mount and PHD guiding software.

Exposure - Luminance 12 x 1200 seconds

Darks, Dark Flats and Flats used.

Software - Nebulosity for focus, acquisition, aligning and stacking. Then processed in PixInsight.

NGC 6960 Supernova remnant

2010-10-20T18:45:00.016+01:00

Last night was my first imaging session since I had my eye op. The moon was fat and bright which meant another session with the Ha filter. Aiming towards the west, I pointed at NGC 6960 part of the Cygnus loop supernova remnant and picked up 5 x 1200 subs. One of the subs was soft that was discarded, the resultant image is made up the remaining 4, which isn't enough to stop a satellite from leaving its footprints across the image. More subs would also improve the quality of the background.

I did move onto another couple of objects which I have yet to process. It's certainly a good feeling to be back imaging, I've missed a few clear skies, lets hope there's more and soon.

I thought this screen shot may be of interest, it shows Nebulosity controlling the QSI camera and capturing the subs and Equinox 6 planetarium software controlling the Robofocus on the Tak FSQ-106ED. Sometimes, I use Equinox 6 to point the telescope. Of course hidden behind these windows is PHD the autoguiding software which is also up and running.

Edit: I've now processed the second object of interest that I photographed this night. It's another image of NGC 1499. It can be seen in my image gallery here. It's made up of 8 x 1200 and is an improvement over the single shot one, I posted below.

Edit: 25/10/10 08:44 BST I have now added further subs to the image of NGC 6960 making a total of 9 x 1200 the image can be seen here.

Designation: NGC 6960 Supernova remnant

Constellation: Cygnus.

Distance 2,000 lights years.

Imaging scope - Takahashi FSQ-106ED f5 at prime focus

Camera - QSI 583 wsg CCD camera, sensor temperature -15C

Filter - Astrodon 3 nm Ha

Autoguiding - OAG, Starlight Express Lodestar guide camera, EQ6 Pro mount and PHD guiding software.

Exposure - Luminance 4 x 1200 seconds

Darks, Dark Flats and Flats used.

Software - Nebulosity for focus, acquisition, aligning and stacking. Then processed in PixInsight HT, ACDNR, HT, HDRWT, HT

FITS Liberator version 3

2010-10-18T09:41:00.012+01:00

FITS Liberator v 3, has been released. This one is a stand alone version rather than a plugin for Photoshop, which must be good for those people who don't use Photoshop.

As usual, installation on my Mac isn't as straight forward as suggested in the instructions. Clicking on the installation icon does not install it. It goes through all the motions of installation but after completion, it just isn't there to be found anywhere on my 'puter.

In versions 1 and 2, I always had to do a manual installation to get it running. So, that's what I did with version 3. However, after the installation, clicking on the app icon does get the software running, but when trying to open a FITS file all the files are greyed out.

I may be missing something in the installation, but this problem is certainly another nudge away from Photoshop to PixInsight which doesn't need the FITS Liberator.

Having said that, I've just upgraded from Adobe Photoshop CS3 to CS5, which now works on the Mac in 64 bit mode and will allow the software to address more RAM. Which'll come in handy when I upgrade the computer sometime in .............

Tek care
Dave

Edit: The FITS team appear to be working on the above mentioned problems as here.

Sh2-112 emission nebula in Cygnus

2010-10-13T14:53:00.004+01:00

Thanks to Time Machine, I was able to recover an image from my desktop that I'd captured and fiddled with on the 24th August. Consequently, I didn't do much with the image and eventually deleted it. But due to my enforced absence from imaging, I've been scratching around look for photos to process. Practice is always beneficial.

This is one from the Sharpless catalogue, Sh2-112, an emission nebula to the west of Deneb and as to be expected, it is in a very dusty region of the sky. It's another one I've processed in PixInsight leaving Photoshop well alone.

The compositions a bit boring though, slap bang in the middle of the frame, it doesn't look very dynamic does it? But at the time, I did have a plan. Close by is Sh2-115, the idea was to fit both in the same frame. However, It would have been a very tight squeeze and the nebulae would've been banging on the edge of the frame asking for more space. So the next best thing is a two pane mosaic, which gives them the required breathing space. As always though my ideas are very slow to come to fruition.

Cygnus was in the west moving away from the telescope and the mandatory clouds rolled in. I only picked up 3 x 1200 subexposures. I like to shoot 30° either side of the meridian and usually will only aim lower when doing a single test shot for future reference. Sh2-122 was a touch further to the west than I would have normally considered. Also more often than not, I get my weather from the west. I was tempting fate.

Edit: Of course there's nothing to stop me from cropping it.

Designation: Sh2-112

Constellation: Perseus

Distance: 5,600 Light years

Imaging scope - Takahashi FSQ-106ED at f5 prime focus
Camera - QSI 583 wsg CCD
Sensor temperature - 15° Celsius
Filter - Astrodon 3 nm Ha
Autoguiding - OAG,Starlight Express Lodestar guide camera, EQ6 Pro mount and PHD guiding software.
Exposure - 3 x 1200
Darks, Dark Flats and Flats
Software - Nebulosity for focus, acquiring, preprocessing and then processed in PixInsight.

NGC 1499

2010-10-11T19:27:00.030+01:00

My left eye is still offline and I'm still not imaging yet, but here's a photo from my files of NGC 1499 in Ha. This is known by some people as the California nebula. I've always thought that it looks like a cuttlefish. I can see an eye, the tentacles are reaching forward down to the left and the body lies up towards the top right. But I was a diver and underwater photographer for 27 years, so my imagination can easily see the said cephalopod. Having said that, I have a friend who teachers school kids astronomy and they call it the Ghost.

That bright star at the bottom is Menkib, Xi ( ξ ) Persei and that's the star that drives the nebula, causing it to emit Hydrogen Alpha and also Hydrogen Beta light.

I took this image on the 18th August, 2010, and it's made up of 1 x 1200 exposure, it's a bit noisy. It was low in the sky, too low. I took it as a test shot really, to see how the object would fit in the frame before I give it my full attention at some later date. (Of mice and men) It's the full frame, no crop. It's a tight fit. Innit?

Edit: 21/10/2010. I've been rummaging through my underwater shots and here is a photo of a cuttlefish. I took this on a night dive in the Red Sea, about 1994. That little chap is about the size of your thumb. Can you see the similarity?

Designation: NGC 1499

Constellation: Perseus

Distance: 1,140 Light years
Imaging scope - Takahashi FSQ-106ED at f5 prime focus
Camera - QSI 583 wsg CCD
Sensor temperature - 15° Celsius
Filter - Astrodon 3 nm Ha
Autoguiding - OAG,Starlight Express Lodestar guide camera, EQ6 Pro mount and PHD guiding software.
Exposure - 1 x 1200
Dark Frames. No Flats
Software - Nebulosity for focus, acquiring, preprocessing and then processed in PixInsight.

Processing with PixInsight

2010-09-17T20:35:00.026+01:00

Last Friday, 10th September, I had an eye operation and I'm in recovery mode. The stitches in the left eyeball are a source of great irritation and I've to take it easy for the next 5 weeks. So no heavy lifting and carting gear out to image, I'm also halfway through building a decking and that's got to wait. (Decking material is cheaper at this time of year)

Even though I only spend 10 minutes at a time at the computer. I've decided to busy myself with image processing and purchased some software called PixInsight, I had a free 45 day trial earlier this year and after the trial added it to my wish list.

The software is specifically written for processing astro images and has funky functions like ACDNR, Screen transfer function, Histogram Transformation, ATrous Wavelet Transform and wait until you try the Dynamic Background Extractor great for those difficult gradients. It's a very steep learning curve but video tutorials are available, some by an astro photographer called Harry Page.

I've posted this image before, previously done in Photoshop CS3. The aligning and stacking was done as usual in Nebulosity, this feature is available in PixInsight but I haven't learnt how to do it yet. Photoshop was used to put the copyright mark on, because, well see previous excuse.

I need more practice but if I get proficient in PixImage, then I may never need Photoshop again, now there's a thought.

It cost nothing for a 45 day trial and will have you thinking outside your normal processing envelope. Nope, I'm not involved with the company.

Edit 19/09/2010: I've also reprocessed VdB 142 in PixInsight, this image has not seen Photoshop the label was added in Aperture.

Edit: 27/09/2010 IC 5070 The Pelican nebula reprocessed in PixInsight and not touched by Photoshop.

Tek care
Dave

Sh2-142 in Cepheus part 2

2010-08-31T13:00:00.005+01:00

All of the frame. More sub exposures obtained for this last night and added to those of the 28th, August, making a total of 12 x 1200 seconds.

Cropped frame and rotated clockwise to show the Wizard.

Designation: Sh2-142

Constellation: Cepheus
Imaging scope - Takahashi FSQ-106ED at f5 prime focus
Camera - QSI 583 wsg CCD
Sensor temperature - 15° Celsius
Filter - Astrodon 3 nm Ha
Autoguiding - OAG,Starlight Express Lodestar guide camera, EQ6 Pro mount and PHD guiding software.
Exposure - 12 x 1200
Dark Frames, Flats and Dark Flats used.
Software - Nebulosity for focus, acquiring, aligning and stacking. FITS Liberator and Photoshop CS3 with Gradient Xterminator and Noel's Actions
Edit 101221:. Reprocessed in PixInsight

Sh2-142 in Cepheus

2010-08-28T11:51:00.012+01:00

I'm wondering if I'm developing lycanthropic tendencies, I wasn't baying at the moon last night but I was working under the glare of a big fat one, imaging again with a Hydrogen Alpha filter and enjoying it. I'll worry if I scratch too often behind the ear.

Today's object is Sh2-142, RA 22 47 35, Dec +58° 03.6', an emission nebula in Cepheus this is sometimes referred to as NGC 7380 but that is the open star cluster within it, the star cluster was discovered by Caroline Herschel. It does have a common name of the Wizard, turn it 90° clock wise to get the full effect. I've cropped the image to show the detail in the nebula.

As an aside to this imaging session, a few days ago I purchased a 10 metre cable from Astronomiser to replace the one between mount and GoTo handset. Now that means I can sit at the laptop in the house and compose the picture by nudging the mount into position using the Frame and Focus facility that's available in Nebulosity.

All I have to do is make sure that the orientation of the direction buttons on the handset match the movement on the lap top. Prior to this I was constantly running twixt computer and mount to make the adjustments, forgetting which button sent the mount where, that took some time believe me. Talk about frustration. In comparison it's a doddle now.

NB: I don't have any connection with the two above mentioned web sites, I'm just a satisfied customer.

Yes, it needs more exposure.

Tek care
Dave

Edit 24.12.2010: I've now added more subexposures to this nebula it can be viewed here.

Designation: Sh2-142

Constellation: Cepheus
Imaging scope - Takahashi FSQ-106ED at f5 prime focus
Camera - QSI 583 wsg CCD
Sensor temperature - 15° Celsius
Filter - Astrodon 3 nm Ha
Autoguiding - OAG,Starlight Express Lodestar guide camera, EQ6 Pro mount and PHD guiding software.
Exposure - 6 x 1200
Dark Frames, Flats and Dark Flats used.
Software - Nebulosity for focus, acquiring, aligning and stacking. FITS Liberator and Photoshop CS3 with Gradient Xterminator and Noel's Actions.

NGC 281, Sh2-184

2010-08-25T17:44:00.007+01:00

It was a full moon last night with a clear sky, I took the opportunity to collect more Ha sub exposures for NGC281. One of the benefits of imaging with narrowband filters is the ability of doing it by moon light. That should increase the number of nights imaging from a few each year to double a few.

I added last night's frame captures to those two obtained on the 11th of August, details posted two or three below, this makes 12 x 1200 or 4 hours in total.

Designation: NGC 281, Sh2-184,
Constellation: Cassiopeia. Distance 10,000 light years.
Imaging scope - Takahashi FSQ-106ED at f5 prime focus
Camera - QSI 583 wsg CCD
Sensor temperature - 15° Celsius
Filter - Astrodon 3 nm Ha
Autoguiding - OAG,Starlight Express Lodestar guide camera, EQ6 Pro mount and PHD guiding software.
Exposure - 12 x 1200 seconds
Dark Frames, Flats and Dark Flats used.
Software - Nebulosity for focus, acquiring, aligning and stacking. FITS Liberator and Photoshop CS3 with Noel's Actions.

IC 5067

2010-08-22T10:14:00.014+01:00

This is IC 5067, it's the neck area of the Pelican. All I've done is cropped this section out of the previously posted photograph and rotated it 90° clockwise. This area is a star forming region of the nebula, if you look carefully at the end of that Elephant trunk formation you'll see at its tip a shock wave called a Herbig-Haro object. That's evidence of a new star.

Capture details as below in original Pelican image.

IC 5070 The Pelican nebula in Hydrogen Alpha

2010-08-18T20:04:00.009+01:00

This is always a popular target, IC 5070 the Pelican nebula with the Ferret in Cygnus. The sky transparency was a bit iffy last night. I'd finally focused and framed the Pelican around midnight and tripped the shutter for the exposures whilst keeping an eye on the passing clouds, which did their best to get me riled. Once for about 20 minutes, I had to hold back whilst a large cloud cleared the bird. After a night of tension, I ended up with 7 x 1200 subs, I was very pleased to say the least.

Designation: IC 5070, Sh2-117

Constellation: Cygnus. Distance 1,800 light years.

Imaging scope - Takahashi FSQ-106ED at f5 prime focus

Camera - QSI 583 wsg CCD

Sensor temperature - 15° Celsius

Filter - Astrodon 3 nm Ha

Autoguiding - OAG,Starlight Express Lodestar guide camera, EQ6 Pro mount and PHD guiding software.

Exposure - 7 x 1200 seconds

Dark Frames, Flats and Dark Flats used.

Software - Nebulosity for focus, acquiring, aligning and stacking. FITS Liberator and Photoshop CS3 with Noel's Actions.

VdB 142 Elephant trunk

2010-08-16T14:34:00.002+01:00

For a couple of hours last night the cloud cleared and I obtained 5 x 1200 sub exposures of vdB 142 Elephant trunk, a cometary globule which is situated in the nebula IC 1396, in Cepheus.

This is one of my favourite objects and I've previously imaged it with my DSLR, that one is in colour this is my Hydrogen Alpha version.

I'm rather pleased with the Ha imaging it sees through light pollution and the photo of the Crescent nebula I posted earlier, was captured at the time of full moon. In the previous post, one down. I mentioned I was hoping to have ready a LRGB version of the Iris nebula that I've been patiently collecting the subs for. All isn't well with that, light pollution is swamping the faint colour channels, I don't use a light pollution filter and I'm doing a rethink.

The rethink is this. I may go completely over to narrowband imaging with its ability to ignore the effects of light pollution which is a man made blight on the night sky. Also many times in the past I've grumbled and grumbled about the trains zipping along the track at the bottom of the garden and of the vibration in the mount that this causes. This vibration is fully translated to the CCD sensor and gives bright stars with wings on either side. I've always deleted those frames.

Now this image is made up of 5 x 20 minute exposure and in two of those exposures a train passed by. I examined the frames and could see a small amount of vibration damage to one bright star and that star is a triple, so it looks an odd shape anyway. I've got to pragmatic, so I stacked the lot, that appears to have taken care of the damage in the same way as it takes care of satellite trails.

Designation: VdB 142

Constellation: Cepheus.

Distance 2,400 light years.

Imaging scope - Takahashi FSQ-106ED f5 at prime focus

Camera - QSI 583 wsg CCD, sensor temperature 15°C

Filter - Astrodon 3 nm Ha

Autoguiding - OAG, Starlight Express Lodestar guide camera, EQ6 Pro mount and PHD guiding software.

Exposure - 5 x 1200 seconds

Darks, Dark flats and Flats used.

Software - Nebulosity for focus, acquisition, aligning and stacking. Photoshop CS3 with FITS Liberator and Noel's Actions.

NGC 281, Nebula in Hydrogen Alpha

2010-08-11T14:41:00.006+01:00

Last night was a good night, I obtained the last of the colour channels for my Iris nebula. Hopefully, I'll be able to post a final colour image in a couple of days. After the last of the colour dropped onto the laptop, the kit wasn't left idle, I pointed it at NGC 281 in Cassiopeia.

The nebula is a HII cloud illuminated by its young stars. They are a number of dark Bok globules, named after the chap who first described them, Bart Bok. Apparently, that's where new stars are born.

I did a bit of visual work with my 80 mm refractor. I never bothered before because my immediate neighbours to the south of me, had one of those fancy lamppost in the garden with four lamps illuminated all night! I've new neighbours who aren't afraid of the dark, I can see!!!

Jupiter looked well with its four Galilean moons, a night time jewel.

Designation: NGC 281, Sh2-184
Constellation: Cygnus. Distance 10,000 light years.
Imaging scope - Takahashi FSQ-106ED at f5 prime focus
Camera - QSI 583 wsg CCD
Sensor temperature - 15° Celsius
Filter - Astrodon 3 nm Ha
Autoguiding - OAG,Starlight Express Lodestar guide camera, EQ6 Pro mount and PHD guiding software.
Exposure - 2 x 1200 seconds
Dark Frames, Flats and Dark Flats used.
Software - Nebulosity for focus, acquiring, aligning and stacking. FITS Liberator and Photoshop CS3 with Noel's Actions.

NGC 6888 Crescent nebula in Ha

2010-07-30T18:55:00.025+01:00

It felt good last night to be out imaging after some weeks of imaging drought. This is first light for the new 3 nm Hydrogen Alpha narrowband filter, I mentioned in the last posting.

It is of course the Crescent nebula in Cygnus, a red super giant Wolf-Rayet at the centre of the Crescent drives the nebula which is at a distance of 4,700 light years.

The clouds cleared for me just after midnight, and I got 5 x 1200 seconds subexposures. It would have been 6 but a train had to spoil one of them at 87% capture. I consider myself fortunate to have the 5.

In fact when the last sub dropped onto the laptop, I was so elated that in a moment of exuberance, I went out into the garden and did a cartwheel. No I didn't, I thought better of it and put the kettle on. A much more sensible idea.

Edit: I've done a slight reprocessing of the image to try and get more depth into it.

Designation: NGC 6888, Sh2-105
Constellation: Cygnus. Distance 4,700 light years.
Imaging scope - Takahashi FSQ-106ED with reducer at f3.6
Camera - QSI 583 wsg CCD
Sensor temperature - 15° Celsius
Filter - Astrodon 3 nm Ha
Autoguiding - OAG,Starlight Express Lodestar guide camera, EQ6 Pro mount and PHD guiding software.
Exposure - 5 x 1200 seconds
Dark Frames, Flats and Dark Flats used.
Software - Nebulosity for focus, acquiring, aligning and stacking. FITS Liberator and Photoshop CS3 with Noel's Actions.

Redshift update

2010-07-27T12:59:00.011+01:00

Its been sometime since I actually did some astrophotography. I made a decision in early June to give it a rest. The 90 minutes it takes me to set up in addition to the disappointment of clouds rolling in just as it gets dark on the short summer nights, happened once too often. I've also been away from home and my computer. The first clear night and I'll be out in the back garden.

I've just ordered an Astrodon, 3 nm Ha narrowband filter from Ian King Imaging, it should be here tomorrow. I'll be able to image when the moon is up, I'm really looking forward to that, as I am with any imaging opportunity.

Actually, I'm feeling a bit of a miserable bugger, I've still got to get the colour channels for the Iris nebula, at this rate it'll be a next year job. Grrrr!

Tek care
Dave

PV Cephi

2010-06-04T18:29:00.006+01:00

The BAA have shown an interest in the variable star PV Cephi in Cepheus, the star has brightened from magnitude 18 to 16.4 and associated with this star, is a variable nebula called Gyulbudaghian's nebula.

If the star is brightening then there's a suggestion that the nebula may be. The object lies at RA 20h 45m 55s and Dec 67° 57' 45".

On the morning of June 3rd, I decided to point the Tak and camera at PV Cephi to see what I could see, I just took 1 x 300 seconds subexposure, no dark or flats.

This image is a close crop and the variable star PV Cephi can be seen within the circle.

Dr. Dan on his FAR AWAY THINGS blog has imaged Gyulbudaghian's nebula with his 20" telescope and you get a hint of the nebula.

Well, it was an interesting exercise but my Tak doesn't provide a large enough image scale, I moved onto LBN 487 the Iris nebula to grab some colour, it then clouded over.

LBN 487 The Iris nebula

2010-05-20T15:53:00.010+01:00

LBN 487 the Iris nebula in Cepheus, sometimes referred to as NGC 7023 but that, is the designation of the star cluster within the nebula. The nebula is a reflection type catalogued as one of the Lynds Bright Nebula. I imaged this over two nights and I've decided to collect even more Luminance before moving onto collecting the colour.

I couldn't continue imaging B150 the dark nebula in Cepheus as I mentioned in the posting 2 below. I've damaged the camera adapter and I'm now unable to attach the reducer which B150 requires.

So I'm imaging at f5 until I've purchased another adapter from the States. I selected this target which is beautiful in its own right and fits nicely in the frame.

Designation: LBN 487
Constellation: Cepheus.
Distance 1,400 lights years.
Imaging scope - Takahashi FSQ-106ED f5 refractor
Camera - QSI 583 wsg CCD camera, sensor temperature -20C
Filter - Astrodon Luminance
Autoguiding - OAG, Starlight Express Lodestar guide camera, EQ6 Pro mount and PHD guiding software.
Exposure - Luminance 46 x 300 seconds
Darks, Dark flats and Flats used.
Software - Nebulosity for focus, acquisition, aligning and stacking. Photoshop CS3 with FITS Liberator, Noel's Actions and Russell Croman's Gradient Xterminator

NGC 4565 Needle galaxy

2010-05-17T18:03:00.003+01:00

NGC 4565 the Needle galaxy in Coma Berenices. I think it's a really beautiful looking edge on spiral. In fact our own Milky Way galaxy probably looks like this from the same angle. It's 33 million light years away and has a diameter of 100,000 light years, a similar size to our own galaxy.

The core is divided by dusty dark lanes and the disc edges are warped probably caused by a close encounter with its companion NGC 4562 which is that fuzzy at the 7 o'clock position. They are a few other fuzzies in the background.

The image was captured over three nights, Luminance on the 3rd, May, Blue and Green the night of the 9th, Red on the 12th May.

Designation: NGC 4565
Constellation: Coma Berenices.
Distance 35 million lights years.
Imaging scope - Takahashi FSQ-106ED f5 refractor
Camera - QSI 583 wsg CCD camera, sensor temperature -20C
Filter - Astrodon LRGB
Autoguiding - OAG, Starlight Express Lodestar guide camera, EQ6 Pro mount and PHD guiding software.
Exposure - L 21 x 300, RGB 10 x 180 2x2 Binned
Darks, Dark flats and Flats used.
Software - Nebulosity for focus, acquisition, aligning and stacking. Photoshop CS3 with FITS Liberator, Noel's Actions and Russell Croman's Gradient Xterminator

The Barnard 150 experiment

2010-05-13T20:06:00.007+01:00

This is a preview of one of the objects I intend imaging in the not too distant future. I pointed the telescope at one of the dark nebulae, Barnard 150 in Cepheus. Dark nebulae are favourites of mine, I've imaged Barnard's E with the 40D before and I want to capture more. As these objects are faint, I thought a few test shots for future imaging plans would be prudent.

I fitted the telescope with the reducer making it a f3.6 at 387 mm. I got 16 x 300 seconds of subexposures but threw 6 away, this is made up of 10 x 300 and it needs more. The whole area is diffused with dark nebulosity with the prominent black stuff in the middle.

Very much work in progress.

The Leo Trio

2010-04-17T11:36:00.010+01:00

Over two nights, I've been collecting Luminance exposures for the Leo Trio a small cluster of galaxies in the constellation of, er, Leo.
On the left is NGC 3628 an 'edge on' spiral galaxy with a broad band of interstellar dust. Top right, M65 and bottom right, M66 with its distorted spiral arms, which maybe due to an interaction with M65. This 'cluster' of galaxies are in Halton Arp's Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, Arp 317. The galaxies are 35 million light years distance.

I'm pleased with the amount of dusty detail the imaging setup has managed to resolve, this is about a 50% crop.
Remember, clicking on the image again and again, will make it bigger.

Next of course are the colour channels.
Edit: Last night, 16th April 2010, I grabbed the blue channel, one third of the way there.
Edit: I've now lost the galaxies until next year.

Designation: NGC 3623 (M65), NGC 3627 (M66) NGC 3628
Constellation: Leo.
Distance 33 million lights years.
Imaging scope - Takahashi FSQ-106ED f5 refractor
Camera - QSI 583 wsg CCD camera, sensor temperature -20C
Filter - Astrodon LRGB
Autoguiding - OAG, Starlight Express Lodestar guide camera, EQ6 Pro mount and PHD guiding software.
Exposure - L 46 x 300,
Darks, Dark flats and Flats used.
Software - Nebulosity for focus, acquisition, aligning and stacking. Photoshop CS3 with FITS Liberator, Noel's Actions and Russell Croman's Gradient Xterminator

M13 The Great Hercules cluster

2010-04-17T10:43:00.001+01:00

I like globular clusters even though they are a bit samey. This isn't my first time of imaging this particular one, I did it last year with the Canon 40D. The problem with these is the probability of burning out the core whist attempting to capture the fainter outer stars. If you burn the stars out at the time of capture, no amount of processing at the computer will bring them back. There's a hint of colour in this one, more than in my previous version.

Click to enlarge.

Designation: NGC 6205
Constellation: Hercules.
Distance 25,890 lights years.
Imaging scope - Takahashi FSQ-106ED f5 refractor
Camera - QSI 583 wsg CCD camera, sensor temperature -20C
Filter - Astrodon LRGB
Autoguiding - OAG, Starlight Express Lodestar guide camera, EQ6 Pro mount and PHD guiding software.
Exposure - L 20 x 120, RGB 6 x 120 2x2 binning
Darks, Dark flats and Flats used.
Software - Nebulosity for focus, acquisition, aligning and stacking. Photoshop CS3 with FITS Liberator, Noel's Actions and Russell Croman's Gradient Xterminator

The Pinwheel galaxy in colour

2010-04-08T20:50:00.015+01:00

Last night, I managed to get the RGB channels to add to the previously posted Luminance image (see posting below), I didn't use a light pollution filter for these either, the gradients were removed in Photoshop. This is my third attempt to process this and I'll probably not stop at three, I'm always fiddling with the data to try and improve it, it's that learning curve, you know.

This galaxy is at the top of the sky where the effects of light pollution aren't as strong as at lower altitudes. I shall continue to image without the filter, see how it goes as the telescope points lower.

Designation: NGC 5457
Constellation: Ursa Major.
Distance 21.8 million lights years.
Imaging scope - Takahashi FSQ-106ED f5 refractor
Camera - QSI 583 wsg CCD camera, sensor temperature -20C
Filter - Astrodon LRGB filters
Autoguiding - OAG, Starlight Express Lodestar guide camera, EQ6 Pro mount and PHD guiding software.
Exposure - L 34 x 300, RGB each 6 x 300, 2x2 binned
Darks, Dark flats and Flats used.
Software - Nebulosity for focus, acquisition, aligning and stacking. Photoshop CS3 with FITS Liberator, Noel's Actions and Russell Croman's Gradient Xterminator

M101 The Pinwheel galaxy

2010-03-26T12:57:00.020Z

T'other night when the moon was at 1st quarter, I pointed the telescope at the Pinwheel galaxy, NGC 5457 in Ursa Major. It's a really nice asymmetrical galaxy one of Halton Arp's Peculiar Galaxies, Arp 26, it's the single heavy spiral arm that brought it to his attention.

Most of the images I've seen of this galaxy are in your face types, a close crop which reveals some of the beauty of the galaxy but tells you nothing of its environment. I like these wide shots albeit taken with telescope of 530 mm focal length, they reveal the majesty of the Universe. This galaxy is 170,000 light years in diameter, a good 70% larger than our own Milky Way. Other galaxies can be seen, just to the right in the 4 o'clock position is NGC 5474 and off at 8 o'clock, NGC 5473. With other fuzzies further down, not forgetting the edge on spiral at top left.

If you haven't guessed this is a Luminance exposure only and without a light pollution filter, yes, I've taken off the stabiliser wheels. Thank heavens for Russell Croman's Gradient Xterminator. This is a preliminary processing of this galaxy image, it may well change when I apply it to the RGB, which I have yet to get.

This negative image allows the fuzzies to be seen better. If you click on either image they will enlarge.

Designation: NGC 5457
Constellation: Ursa Major.
Distance 21.8 million lights years.
Imaging scope - Takahashi FSQ-106ED f5 refractor
Camera - QSI 583 wsg CCD camera, sensor temperature -20C
Filter - Astrodon Luminance
Autoguiding - OAG, Starlight Express Lodestar guide camera, EQ6 Pro mount and PHD guiding software.
Exposure - L 34 x 300
Darks, Dark flats and Flats used.
Software - Nebulosity for focus, acquisition, aligning and stacking. Photoshop CS3 with FITS Liberator, Noel's Actions and Russell Croman's Gradient Xterminator

M51 The Whirlpool galaxy

2010-03-15T15:15:00.011Z

I started imaging this galaxy on the 17th, February, 2010, I managed to get the Luminance, Red and Blue. I wasn't able to get the Green channel until last night the 14th, March and I've produced this LRGB image from the data.

You maybe aware that this is actually two galaxies, what appears to be a blob at the end of the Whirlpool's Arm is in actual fact a galaxy in its own right. Also if you look carefully you'll see some faint fuzzies in the background.

Designation: NGC 5194-5
Constellation: Canes Venatici.
Distance 2.6 million lights years.
Imaging scope - Takahashi FSQ-106ED f5 refractor
Camera - QSI 583 wsg CCD camera, sensor temperature -20C
Filter - Astronomik CLS, Astrodon LRGB
Autoguiding - OAG, Starlight Express Lodestar guide camera, EQ6 Pro mount and PHD guiding software.
Exposure - L 10 x 300 , 6 x 300 R, 4 x 300 G and 5 x 300 B
Darks, Dark flats and Flats used.
Software - Nebulosity for focus, acquisition, aligning and stacking. Photoshop CS3 with FITS Liberator, Noel's Actions and Russell Croman's Gradient Xterminator

Double Quasar QSO 0957+561, components A and B

2010-03-12T09:55:00.010Z

A few weeks ago I agreed to do an illustrated talk for Doncaster Astronomical Society my local society, it was to be entitled "The Solar System and beyond". I'd already got all of the images to illustrate the talk working from the sun outwards through the planets, comets and dwarf planets etc. but even though I had images of objects outside the Milky Way, I wanted to go as far out and as deep as possible, I needed to really illustrate the 'beyond' in the title.

At 1.00 am Wednesday, 10th, March, I returned home from a short holiday to Cyprus and the talk was due the following night, Thursday, 11th, 7.30 pm prompt.

Luckily for me, Wednesday evening presented me with 3 hours of clear-ish skies. I'd also been wanting to use the new OAG gadget on the CCD camera, see posting below.

The first hour was spent finding focus with the added OAG and then focusing the Starlight Express Lodestar guide camera through the prism, you only have to do this once, it's then fixed with a small grub screw. From then on if the main imaging camera is in focus so is the guide camera. Simples.

I wanted a really deep sky object, the one I had my eye on was just swinging around the top of the house. I know, imaging over houses is not ideal but like many people, I haven't a choice.

NGC 3079 a barred spiral galaxy in Ursa Major was overhead, it wasn't the true target but it's handy as a pointer in finding what I wanted, QSO 0957+561 components A and B the Double Quasar. It's pretty faint, component A is magnitude 16.7 and B 16.5.

I wasn't certain if I would have any joy capture the photons from this object, I was elated when the first 300 second subexposure dropped onto the laptop and I could indeed see A and B.

To cut a 3 hour story short the above image is the nights work, Luminance only.

I've done a heavy crop on the image (below) and circled the Double Quasar, it's fascinating that this object is at Redshift z = 1.41 which is a distance of 8.7 billion light years, the light from this object started travelling towards my camera billions of years before the existence of our solar system.
It also proves Einstein's theory of gravitational lensing, because component A is also B and vice versa, owing to a massive galaxy cluster between the Earth and the Quasar which bends the light giving two images from a single object, there is a difference of 417 days between both images as a result of the light of one component taking a longer journey.

It's not a pretty picture but it did illustrate the slide show and I think it went down well.

Designation: QSO 0957+561
Constellation: Ursa major. Distance 8.7 billion light years.
Imaging scope - Takahashi FSQ-106ED f5 refractor at prime focus
Camera - QSI 583 wsg CCD
Sensor temperature -20° Celsius
Filter - Astrodon Luminance and Astronomik CLS light pollution
Autoguiding - OAG, Starlight Express Lodestar guide camera, EQ6 Pro mount and PHD guiding software.
Exposure - 16 x 300 seconds Luminance only
Dark frames, Flats and Dark flats used.
Software - Nebulosity for focus, acquiring, aligning and stacking. Photoshop CS3 with FITS Liberator and Russell Croman's Gradient Xterminator.

QSI 583 ws upgraded to wsg

2010-02-24T10:28:00.011Z

I've just upgraded the QSI 583 ws camera to a wsg, this entails putting another front on the camera which has a pick off prism inside and gives 'Off axis guiding' OAG. In the photograph above a Starlight Express Lodestar guide camera is mounted on the OAG and courtesy of the prism, looks down the imaging telescope at a guide star.

At the present I'm using push fit, thumb screw adapters. I have a screw adapter on backorder from the USA, it's 2 to 3 weeks delivery. I'll fix a security cord between the camera and scope, so, if the adapters slip due to contraction, the camera will not fall to the ground.

Adding the OAG, allowed me to remove the TMB 80 mm refractor that I used for guiding, the Losmandy side by side bracket and 8 kgs of counterweight. Making the system more streamlined and easier to carry to star parties. Further details can be seen here.

The photograph below shows the old imaging setup.

All I need now is a star to guide by.

M97 The Owl nebula

2010-02-21T13:56:00.020Z

Its been a freezing night, the thermometer at 3.30 am read -4.4.° Celsius. It was still dark and clear as I put the kit away, but the guide scope had frost at the centre of the front element, but it was still guiding. However, the Tak was also covered in frost and the lens was beginning to dew over, the battery power supply for the dew heaters had flattened. I wasn't going anywhere fast, so, I decided to call it a night.

This is M97 the owl nebula, a planetary nebula in Ursa Major around 4,100 light years away and the galaxy M108 at 45 million light years away.

I've done a close crop of the owl to show it as well as possible.

Designation NGC 3587 (M97) NGC 3556 (M108)
Constellation: Ursa major.
Distance 4,140 light years to the nebula, 46 million lights years to the galaxy.
Imaging scope - Takahashi FSQ-106ED f5 refractor
Camera - QSI 583 ws CCD camera, sensor temperature -20C
Filter - Astronomik CLS, Astrodon LRGB
Autoguiding - TMB 80 mm f6 refractor, Starlight Express Lodestar guide camera, EQ6 Pro mount and PHD guiding software.
Exposure - L 15 x 300 , 6 x 300 each of RGB
Darks, Dark flats and Flats used.
Software - Nebulosity for focus, acquisition, aligning and stacking. Photoshop CS3 with FITS Liberator, Noel's Actions and Russell Croman's Gradient Xterminator.

M44 Beehive or Praesepe star cluster

2010-02-17T17:13:00.006Z

Just after 2300 UT, I had a few hours of clear sky but at that time I've lost the winter nebulae, their positions in the sky isn't conducive to good imaging. I wasn't able to get the RGB for the Rosette nebula I need.

Therefore, I pointed the telescope to M44 the Beehive an open star cluster, in Cancer, this is sometimes known as Praesepe.
I decided to just capture RGB and made 5 x 120 seconds subexposures of each.

I was waiting for M51 the Whirlpool galaxy in Canes Ventaici to drop into place, which it predictably did. On that, I did the Luminance 10 x 300 followed by Blue 5 x 300, then Red and changed to the Green filter and just as predictable the clouds rolled in and frost started clinging to the scope etc.

However these imaging runs do teach you a lot, I've decided to capture as much Luminance exposures as possible and then on another night go for the RGB. With the type of weather we have in the UK it could some weeks, months or …..

Designation NGC 2632
Constellation: Cancer. Distance 610 light years.
Imaging scope - Takahashi FSQ-106ED f5 refractor at prime focus
Camera - QSI 583 ws CCD
Sensor temperature -20° Celsius
Filter - Astrodon Luminance and Astronomik CLS light pollution
Autoguiding - TMB 80 mm f6 refractor, Starlight Express Lodestar guide camera, EQ6 Pro mount and PHD guiding software.
Exposure - 5 x 120 R, 5 x 120 G and 5 x 120 B
Dark frames, Flats and Dark flats used.
Software - Nebulosity for focus, acquiring, aligning and stacking. Photoshop CS3 with FITS Liberator, Noel's Actions and Russell Croman's Gradient Xterminator.

Another go at the Rosette nebula

2010-02-11T15:21:00.005Z

Last night the weather was much the same as the previous except, I had to run out and cover everything up because of the flurries of snow. I managed 7 x 300 seconds of sub exposures, if you compare both photographs, you'll see the extra 5 sub exposures bring more of the nebulosity out.

Constellation: Monoceros. Distance 5,000 light years.
Imaging scope - Takahashi FSQ-106ED f5 refractor at prime focus
Camera - QSI 583 ws CCD
Sensor temperature -20° Celsius
Filter - Astrodon Luminance and Astronomik CLS light pollution
Autoguiding - TMB 80 mm f6 refractor, Starlight Express Lodestar guide camera, EQ6 Pro mount and PHD guiding software.
Exposure - 7 x 300 seconds Luminance only
Dark frames, Flats and Dark flats used.
Software - Nebulosity for focus, acquiring, aligning and stacking. Photoshop CS3 with FITS Liberator and Noel's Actions

Luminance, Rosette nebula

2010-02-10T11:36:00.007Z

In desperation, last night I spent 6 hours trying to capture an image, shooting through gaps in the clouds, cursing the passing trains and at one stage rushing out to cover the scopes and powering down when it rained.

It was a long frustrating 6 hours and all I got was 2 x 300 seconds through the Luminance filter. I thought this image produced from those two exposures would be of interest, so here it is. No, I'm not counting this as first light, I'm just getting to know the new QSI 583 camera. First light will be a full blown LRGB, at this rate don't hold your breath.

If I don't have clear skies say in the next couple of weeks I've lost the best nebulae until next winter, it's those trees you know. Yep, I've got an excuse for everything.

Constellation: Monoceros. Distance 5,000 light years.
Imaging scope - Takahashi FSQ-106ED f5 refractor at prime focus
Camera - QSI 583 ws CCD
Sensor temperature -20° Celsius
Filter - Astrodon Luminance and Astronomik CLS light pollution
Autoguiding - TMB 80 mm f6 refractor, Starlight Express Lodestar guide camera, EQ6 Pro mount and PHD guiding software.
Exposure - 2 x 300 seconds Luminance only
Dark frames, Flats and Dark flats used.
Software - Nebulosity for focus, acquiring, aligning and stacking. Photoshop CS3 with Noel's Actions

Update of the QSI 583 ws

2010-01-22T19:08:00.002Z

Since receiving this camera, I've only had one evening where I managed a couple of hours imaging before it clouded over. I'm desperate for a totally clear night but aren't we all?

The camera is well built has a nice compact form and worked superbly, the chip was running at -20C at only 48% power, it takes a couple of minutes to get there and I allowed the temperature to stabilise for another couple of minutes. I pointed it at the Double cluster and first of all focused the camera though each of the 4 filters to ascertain the focus offset. I use Robofocus and these are the settings for each of the filters. Red 915, Green 912, Blue 913 and Luminance 913, very, very close. I didn't change focus between each, to be truefull that wasn't by design, I forgot.

I made a series of exposures through the LRGB filters, however, it's not an image I would show anyone. As I've said on many occasions at the bottom of my garden I have the east coast main line. On Sunday evenings at the time I was imaging, it's very busy, usually just the freight tractive units, going north or south. I'm convinced they're being repositioned around the country. As a consequence the brightest stars have big spiky things all over the place because of the vibration. Normally I always delete any lights that are captured during train passage. Here though, I wanted a result, I'm sure you can understand that.

The QSI 583 ws CCD camera, my new toy

2010-01-05T14:05:00.006Z

In a couple of recent postings I have alluded to an imminent change at Kingfisher, well, I'm moving into the world of cooled CCD imaging. A courier has just been and delivered my new CCD astro camera, the 40D will be taking a sideways step as I put this QSI 583 ws, into use.

It took me some months of research to decide that this particular camera suited my setup.

I've gone for the all round flexibility of a monochromatic camera, which allows me to do either LRGB or Narrowband imaging. The 583 ws has a built-in filter wheel, mine's populated with Astrodon LRGB Generation 2 Tru-Balance filters when the bank balance allows, I can change wheels for one fitted with narrowband filters. With the optional Canon EOS adapter the ws bodied camera has the same back focus as Canon DSLRs. Therefore, I bayonet the 40D off, and I bayonet the QSI on, I can also use it with my Canon lenses.

The camera weighs in at 1120 g compared to the 40D's, lightweight 740 g. I'll have to reset the balance of the telescope, as it is, the telescope is backend heavy with the Canon and I've added some weight up front to counter that. To rebalance, I may have to slide the dovetail plate up through the combo plate, there is a problem with that, the camera rotator when rotated will foul on the combo plate. We'll see.

Nebulosity my favoured focus, acquire and processing software will also talk to the camera, which is a big plus because I run a Mac and don't have the use of the other well known capture softwares, which are Windows only.

The learning curve has just got steeper.
Oh, for clear nights, pleease!

Edit: The camera is monochromatic, a colour image can be obtained by exposing separately through, Red, Green and a Blue filters. These separate greyscale exposures are then combined in software such as Photoshop, which will then give a full colour image.
An extra exposure through a clear Luminance filter will add resolution.

You can see the LRGB filters in one of the photographs above, yes they don't look the colour the name suggests. The Red is in the number one position and reflects its complimentary colour, Cyan. The Green reflects, Magenta and Blue, Yellow.

M42 The Great Orion Nebula

2009-12-13T18:45:00.009Z

This is my attempt from last night of M42.
I had a plan, ah ha. I wanted to vary the exposure times on this object, so I wouldn't burn out the core. I grabbed 30 x 5 seconds, 30 x 15 seconds and 19 x 60 seconds sub exposure. Then, I was to get as many 300 seconds of sub exposures as possible, but I was foiled by my neighbour's 8 Poplar trees. Orion went and hid, just like a big girl's blouse.
I treated each set of subexposures separately, processing each one in Nebulosity i.e. darks and flats reduction. So, I had 3 tiff files, 1 x 5, 1 x 15 and 1 x 60. These I took into Photoshop and Layered them on top of each other. The shortest exposure is always the Base Layer, then the 15 and then 60. I added a Clipping Layer so I could get the colour balance in each one the same. Then a Masking Layer (Reveal All) then in the Trapezium area, painted through the upper most Layers to Reveal the shorter exposures detail.
Those 300 second subs would've been nice.
Does anyone have a chain saw? Just kidding.

Constellation: Orion. Distance 1,500 light years.
Imaging scope - Takahashi FSQ-106ED f5 at Prime focus
Camera - Modified Canon 40D
Filter - Astronomik CLS
Autoguiding - TMB 80 mm f6 refractor, Starlight Express Lodestar camera, EQ6 Pro mount and PHD guiding software
Exposures 30 x 5, 30 x 15 and 19 x 60 seconds
Dark Frames, Flats and Dark Flats used.
Software - Nebulosity for focus, aligning and stacking. Photoshop CS3 with Noel's Actions and Russell Croman's Gradient Xterminator.
Temperature 1° to 0° Celsius

Star Trails

2009-12-06T22:28:00.008Z

I remember as a kid trying to make star trails with a camera and film but without much success.

For the first time tonight, I had a go with my Canon 40D, fitted with a 16 mm to 35 zoom lens, at the wide end. The camera was fixed to a tripod, I selected manual and a shutter duration of 30 seconds. The drive of the camera must be put into continuous, so when the remote release is operated and locked, the camera continues to take exposures until the memory card is full.

The first photograph is made up of 72 x 30 seconds exposure the second 73 and processed in Photoshop using Chris Schur's Star Trails Action. And for those of you who don't have Photoshop this piece of stand alone software may help

The view is west and takes in Lyra and Cygnus, now all I need is a really interesting foreground.

Flat light with electroluminescent panel

2009-12-04T09:59:00.008Z

In preparation for an imminent arrival, I've made a flat light out of a electroluminescent panel which I purchased from Posterpower UK , I've adapted it for my own purposes.

The EL panel is fixed to a 12 mm thick piece of plywood with double sided tape. A second piece of plywood with an aperture that's slightly larger than the diameter of the Tak dew shield, has been taped over the EL. This aperture has been lined with a strip of door draught excluder to afford a close fit over the dew shield. The first image shows the panel switched off.

This second shows the panel switched on.

Initial experiments and exposures with the 40D, show promise, I'll tidy it up when I've finalised the design.

Edit 18/09/2010: I've modified the flat panel buy placing a piece of 3 mm thick opal perspex in front of the EL panel. The system is working extremely well and producing good flats.

M31 The Great Andromeda galaxy

2009-11-17T11:39:00.013Z

This is my latest image of this galaxy from the other night, the 15th. Large and bright with multiple dust lanes showing. This is always going to be one of those objects I'm going to return to, time and time again.

Constellation: Andromeda. Distance 2.5 million light years.
Imaging scope - Takahashi FSQ-106ED f5 refractor at prime focus

Camera - Modified Canon 40D

Filter - Astronomik CLS

Autoguiding - TMB 80 mm f6 refractor, Starlight Express Lodestar camera, EQ6 Pro mount and PHD guiding software, dithered.

Exposure - 24 x 300 and 10 x 120 seconds of subexposures

Darks, Flats and Dark Flats used

Software - Nebulosity for focus, acquisition, aligning and stacking. Photoshop CS3 with Noel's Actions and Russell Croman's Gradient Xterminator.

Temperature 7° to 6° Celsius

Published in Astronomy Now's, 2010 yearbook

2009-11-11T12:37:00.015Z

I went into Donny this morning and slipped into W.H. Smith's reading room, there I flicked through a copy of Astronomy Now's 2010 yearbook, and on page 34, in the "Pictures of the year gallery", I saw my image of the Rosette nebula, which was "Picture of the month" in the April issue of the magazine.
Also on page 78 of the yearbook, my Pleiades image helps illustrate "Winter", that was originally published in the magazine's "Picture gallery" in March. That was a pleasant surprise as I didn't have any forewarning.

Nothing much has happened at the Kingfisher observatory recently, the sky conditions have been terrible, I'm itching to carry on imaging. I should have some exciting news in 2 or 3 weeks time, which'll mean I will have to make a slight adjustment to the subtitle of this blog.

Edit: The Rosette nebula image has also been published again in Astronomy Now, December 2009 issue, used to help illustrate an article entitled "Celestial Wonders"

M33 The Triangulum galaxy reprocessed

2009-10-24T16:01:00.005+01:00

This is another attempt to process this galaxy image which I first posted below, I went back to basics starting with the darks and flats etc. There's still a hint of the red stuff of the emission nebulae, perhaps the previous one was a bit too red?

Imaging details as previous.

M33 The Triangulum galaxy

2009-10-13T13:36:00.005+01:00

This is my latest version of this particular galaxy my first pre-modified camera version being here. This was captured during the early hours of Monday, the sky was deceptively clear but a high very thin haze was most certainly there and produced poor subs. I've spent some appreciable processing time on this, stretched it, fudged it and deleted it, and started all over again on numerous occasions. I'll most probably give it another go in the near future, in the meantime this object is now at a good imaging angle, so I may even take more subs.

You may also notice that this image shows the red coloured Ha stuff that swirls throughout the galaxy, these are star forming regions, one is so large that it has its own NGC number, NGC 604. That's it at the 7 o'clock position.

Constellation: Triangulum. Distance 3 million light years.

Imaging scope - Takahashi FSQ-106ED f5 refractor

Camera - Canon 40D

Filter - Astronomik CLS

Acquisition - Canon EOS Utility

Autoguiding - TMB 80 mm f6 refractor, Starlight Express Lodestar guide camera, EQ6 Pro mount and PHD guiding software.

Exposure - 38 x 360 seconds subexposures

Darks used.

Software - Nebulosity for focus, aligning and stacking. Photoshop CS3 with Noel's Actions and Russell Croman's Gradient Xterminator.

Temperature 10° to 9.5° Celsius

LBN 667 The Baby nebula

2009-09-28T19:07:00.005+01:00

The Baby nebula LBN 667, in Cassiopeia is also known as the Soul nebula, the catalogue designation IC 1848 usually given for this nebula, actually refers to the open star cluster in the Baby's belly. It's a tight fit for the baby, I should've gone wider to give it room to breath and kick. The apparent size of the Baby is 60' with a magnitude of 6.5, it's close to another nebula that goes under the name of the Heart, hence the Baby is sometimes called the Soul, i.e. Heart and Soul.

Designation: LBN 667

Constellation: Cassiopeia. Distance 7000 light years.

Imaging scope - Takahashi FSQ-106ED f5 refractor at prime focus

Camera - Canon 40D

Filter - Astronomik CLS

Autoguiding - TMB 80 mm f6 refractor, Starlight Express Lodestar camera, EQ6 Pro mount and PHD guiding software.

Exposure - 32 x 300 seconds

Dark frames, Flats and Dark Flats used

Software - Nebulosity for focus, acquisition, aligning and stacking. Photoshop CS3 with Noel's Actions and Russell Croman's Gradient Xterminator.

Temperature 12° to 9° Celsius

North America and the Pelican with modified 40D

2009-09-13T12:17:00.049+01:00

It seems like I've waited forever for a clear sky to try the newly modified Canon 40D. So here's the first image from last night, left to right, NGC 7000 the North America nebula, IC 5070 the Pelican nebula and if you look carefully, peeping over the shoulder of the Pelican is the Ferret. Some people call it the skull, but being a Yorkshire lad, I rather like the Ferret. As long as it doesn't bite. Having said that, I always thought that the Pelican actually looks like one of those prehistoric flying Pterodactyls.

Also if you rotate the image 90° clockwise and look at 'Mexico', you'll see the Water Buffalo's head, mouth, nose, ears and horns, and the Pelican becomes a Rabbit.

This area of nebulosity sits near the star Deneb, in the constellation of Cygnus the Swan, however Deneb is not in this photograph. I've not cropped it other than nibbled a few alignment pixels from each edge, this is the way I composed and framed the image in the camera.

I've added a touch more weight to the counter weight shaft to overcome the guiding difficulty I previously mentioned in the post 'One of the Local group' below. By sliding this extra weight up or down the shaft I can load or unload the mount depending on which side of the pier the telescope is. It worked, so the extra weight is staying on.

As usual, I was using software called Nebulosity to focus, but for the first time, I'm also using it to acquire the image and in conjunction with PHD guiding software, the mount was dithered between exposures. In the past I've always used EOS Utility to acquire the image and I have never dithered before. Well, not in the way I mean here.

Modification of the camera greatly improved its ability to catch those Ha photons and also made it a bit easier to process the image and bring out the colour. I don't consider this photograph to be perfect, I can see a few faults but as my experience grows with the modified camera, these should diminish.

Constellation: Cygnus. Distance 1,800 light years.
Imaging scope - Takahashi FSQ-106ED f5 refractor at prime focus
Camera - Canon 40D
Filter - Astronomik CLS
Autoguiding - TMB 80 mm f6 refractor, Starlight Express Lodestar camera, EQ6 Pro mount and PHD guiding software.
Exposure - 29 x 300 seconds
Dark frames, Flats used.
Software - Nebulosity for focus, acquisition, aligning and stacking. Photoshop CS3 with Noel's Actions and Russell Croman's Gradient Xterminator.

Temperature 12° to 9.6° Celsius

NGC 6853

2009-07-31T18:38:00.023+01:00

... a planetary nebula more often known by the handle Messier 27, the Dumbbell nebula in Vulpecula. Another few hours of clear sky this last night and you have to grab every opportunity that comes your way. So, I was ready early with the Tak, and fitted it with the 1.6x extender.

I'm still using a standard Canon DSLR, therefore it isn't very sensitive to the light from the red stuff, once modified - I'm counting - more of that will show.

I had a few trains going past on this one, and the guiding jumped a bit, I deleted the faulty ones. Actually the passing trains dithered the mount.

I've done some research and found out that there are about 1500 planetary nebulae known in our galaxy and they occur in isolation, they usually have this characteristic colour green of doubly ionised oxygen and the red of singly ionised nitrogen and from Hydrogen Alpha emission.

Looking through my 106 mm refractor with a 17 mm eyepiece the nebula looks like a bright oval shaped smudge, totally colourless to my eyes but still has that appeal of wonder, the colours alas, only reveal themselves to an astro-photographer.

Below is a closer crop of the above image.

Constellation: Vulpecula. Distance 1,250 light years.
Imaging scope - Takahashi FSQ-106ED f5 refractor fitted with Tak Extender-Q 1.6x giving f8
Camera - Canon 40D
Filter - Astronomik CLS
Acquisition - Canon EOS Utility
Autoguiding - TMB 80 mm f6 refractor, Starlight Express Lodestar guide camera, EQ6 Pro mount and PHD guiding software.
Exposure - 34 x 300 seconds subexposures
Darks and Flats used.
Software - Nebulosity for focus, aligning and stacking. Photoshop CS3 with Noel's Actions and Russell Croman's Gradient Xterminator.

Temperature 13° to 9° Celsius

M13 Latest

2009-07-28T22:26:00.009+01:00

Two nights in a row with a few hours of clear sky, marvelous. I shortened the exposures for this image of the globular cluster, 240, 180 and 120 seconds subexposures. I wanted to try and get more colour and shape into the cluster than in the previous image.

Look carefully and you can see the propeller as indicated in the image below.

Constellation: Hercules. Distance 25,100 light years.
Imaging scope - Takahashi FSQ-106ED f5 refractor fitted with Tak 1.6 extender giving f8
Camera - Canon 40D
Filter - Astronomik CLS
Acquisition - Canon EOS Utility
Autoguiding - TMB 80 mm f6 refractor, Starlight Express Lodestar guide camera, EQ6 Pro mount and PHD guiding software.
Exposure - 5 x 240, 5 x 180 and 5 x 120 seconds subexposures
Darks and Flats used.
Software - Nebulosity for focus, aligning and stacking. Photoshop CS3 with Noel's Actions and Russell Croman's Gradient Xterminator.

Temperature 14° to 11° Celsius

M13 The Hercules Great Globular Cluster

2009-07-26T13:52:00.027+01:00

The weather forecast depending on which one you looked at, promised some clear skies this past night. I wanted to image M33 the Triangulum galaxy in the constellation of the same name. However, that object still had to climb the eastern horizon to an imaging altitude. Whilst waiting I turned my attention to Messier 13, The Great Globular Cluster in Hercules, it would be the first time I've imaged a globular.

The Tak was fitted with a 1.6 x extender increasing the focal length from the native 530 mm to 850 mm at f8. I'd decided I was going to take exposures at varying durations then when stacked I'd have some colour and I wouldn't blow the core, that was my plan. I would start with the longest exposures first while Hercules was at its highest point in the sky and shorten them as it dropped towards the western horizon.

The camera was orientated to include NGC 6207 a spiral galaxy to the north of M13.

As is often said "the best laid plans of...." the clouds rolled in, I managed 5 x 300 and 5 x 360 second subexposures and deleted one of the 300 subs.

I did have better luck with my Flats this time, in fact they successfully removed a couple of dust bunnies.

Here it is, the unfinished globular, in the photograph below, north is to the right, it's the full frame just nibbled at the edges to remove alignment borders.

And a closer crop.

The Hercules Great Globular Cluster, 145 light years across containing several thousand stars, was discovered in 1714 by Edmond Halley, he of comet fame.

Constellation: Hercules. Distance 25,100 light years.
Imaging scope - Takahashi FSQ-106ED f5 refractor fitted with Tak 1.6 extender giving f8
Camera - Canon 40D
Filter - Astronomik CLS
Acquisition - Canon EOS Utility
Autoguiding - TMB 80 mm f6 refractor, Starlight Express Lodestar guide camera, EQ6 Pro mount and PHD guiding software.
Exposure - 4 x 300 seconds 5 x 360 seconds subexposures
Darks and Flats used.
Software - Nebulosity for focus, aligning and stacking. Photoshop CS3 with Noel's Actions and Russell Croman's Gradient Xterminator.

Temperature 15° Celsius

The Cocoon nebula, IC5146 revisited.

2009-07-25T15:16:00.018+01:00

The previous image of this nebula posted a couple below, was only made up of 10 x 300 second subs, so this last night I decided to capture some more, I finally grabbed a total of 30 x 300 second subs, which makes for a smoother image. There's also more detail in the Cocoon and the area of dark nebula.

I've presented it the way it hangs in the sky, and I like this composition the best, the Cocoon nebula and the dark Barnard stuff running off, is exactly where it needs to be.

Mind you this is the 3rd time of processing it, I kept getting too much noise so I did a process of elimination, on this final attempt I left out the flat frames, it appears that those were the problem. I'd made a complete mess of taking them, to be truefull I knew they weren't up to scratch but I had to try. It's all in the learning curve.

I've also replaced my Imaging Source DMK camera which I've been using with some success to guide the mount, its replacement is a Starlight Express Lodestar guide camera, a monochromatic camera whereas the DMK was colour. Monochrome is more sensitive, I see fainter stars and the chip is bigger, so the view is wider, all in all more stars to guide with.

Its also meant I could get rid of a 10 metre firewire cable between laptop and DMK camera and a Shoestring Astronomy GPUSB 'electronic guide box'

Constellation: Cygnus. Distance 3,900 light years.
Imaging scope - Takahashi FSQ-106ED f5 refractor fitted with Tak 0.73 reducer giving f3.6
Camera - Canon 40D
Filter - Astronomik CLS
Acquisition - Canon EOS Utility
Autoguiding - TMB 80 mm f6 refractor, Starlight Express Lodestar guide camera, EQ6 Pro mount and PHD guiding software.
Exposure - 30 x 300 seconds
Darks used.
Software - Nebulosity for focus, aligning and stacking. Photoshop CS3 with Noel's Actions and Russell Croman's Gradient Xterminator.

Temperature 14° to 12° Celsius

Collinder 399, The Coathanger

2009-07-21T11:02:00.012+01:00

Last nights target was that well known asterism, the Coathanger, aka Collinder 399 or Brocchi's cluster in Vulpecula. It's not a true star cluster but what's called an asterism, a chance alignment of stars giving a familiar pattern of a ....

Perhaps, I should've taken more care with the framing, as it is I've missed off NGC 6802 a true star cluster which has dropped off the bottom of the frame. I had to delete 3 subs because of satellites and 8 more due to clouds, which gave me 9 to play with, I would like many more, it's always hard deleting 300 second subexposures. This time though I managed a few Darks, which are always handy to have and they've been added to my Darks library.

The diffraction spikes were added with Noel's Astronomy Tools, usually referred to as Noel's Action, a pretty good set of tools to have.

I'm actually working on a device to put diffraction spikes on in camera, some day I'll finish it.

Again this image is "full of stars"

Constellation: Vulpecula.
Imaging scope - Takahashi FSQ-106ED f5 refractor fitted with Tak 0.73 reducer giving f3.6
Camera - Canon 40D
Filter - Astronomik CLS
Acquisition - Canon EOS Utility
Autoguiding - TMB 80 mm f6 refractor, Imaging Source DBK 21AF04.AS camera, EQ6 Pro mount and PHD guiding software.
Exposure - 9 x 300 seconds
Darks and Flats used.
Software - Nebulosity for focus, aligning and stacking. Photoshop CS3 with Noel's Actions and Russell Croman's Gradient Xterminator.

Temperature 13° to 11° Celsius

IC5146 the Cocoon nebula and environs

2009-06-24T11:47:00.048+01:00

You learn fast that the month of June isn't particular good for astrophotography, the period of darkness is minimal and the DSLR gets warmer than norm, but at least I'm imaging in shorts and T shirt, and occasionally I have the company of a Pipistrelle bat.

Last night's sky was clear and I was eager to test run my reconfigured observatory. You see, since my last post and comment that everything was going hunky dory, my laptop threw a wobbly, the graphic/video card went belly up. It's fixed now though, thanks to an extended warranty. Phew, glad I got that.

A quick word on the observatory, I used to have 6 x 10 metre length cables twixt laptop and mount etc. I've now since put a powered USB hub next to the telescope, this has allowed me to remove 4 of those lengthy cables, and just run short ones from the hub. I should have done this earlier, but I didn't like the idea of 240 volts mains electricity on the terrace to power the hub, now though I've picked up a weatherproof electric box. It's working.

I always know well in advance what I want to image, I've been visualising this Cocoon nebula and the Barnard dark nebula B168 for sometime. I wanted to show the Cocoon nebula and its cometary like tail of dark nebula trailing behind, as if the Cocoon has pushed aside the stars. It remind me of the way a duck pushes aside the duckweed on a pond leaving a trail of clear dark water. (Right, less of my imagination)

I fitted the Tak with a 0.73 reducer which gave the telescope a focal length of 387 mm and an aperture of f3.6, the framing and composition is almost as I visualised it, it's just a gnat's smidgin out, which is causing an itch. It'll be round again for another go though.

The resultant photo is below, 12 lights frames and 10 flats, but no darks. I'm having problems with those for this image, they just added a terrible amount of noise. Also they looked a lot different to my other darks, work in progress.

Yes, I know it's upside down, I like it this way.

Constellation: Cygnus. Distance 3,900 light years.
Imaging scope - Takahashi FSQ-106ED f5 refractor fitted with Tak 0.73 reducer giving f3.6
Camera - Canon 40D
Filter - Astronomik CLS
Acquisition - Canon EOS Utility
Autoguiding - TMB 80 mm f6 refractor, Imaging Source DBK 21AF04.AS camera, EQ6 Pro mount and PHD guiding software.
Exposure - 12 x 300 seconds
Flats used.
Software - Nebulosity for focus, aligning and stacking. Photoshop CS3 with Noel's Actions and Russell Croman's Gradient Xterminator.

Barnard's E

2009-05-30T12:28:00.023+01:00

These dark fingers of dust are collectively called Barnard's E, named after Edward Emerson Barnard who compiled a catalogue of dark nebulae. This pair are numbered B142 (on the right) and B143.

Of course one of the more famous dark nebula is Barnard 33 the Horse Head in Orion.

I became intrigued by these so called Barnard dark nebulae last year and took a pot shot at this one, managing to get just 1 x 300 second exposure, but at that time the nebulae were between a couple of trees, so, I wasn't able to follow up the project until this year.
Last night the sky was clear with just a slight high haze, isn't there always?

Imaging this was pretty uneventful, everything went alright and I managed 21 decent subexposures. Actually, for the past few months of imaging its been hunky dory, oh err, I've done it now.

So here it is Barnard's E, silhouetted against a rich background of countless stars. An uncropped version can be seen here.

Edit: Society for Popular Astronomy, Home page 15th June, 2009.
Picture of the week, British Astronomical Association, 29th June 2009.

Constellation: Aquila. Distance 2,000 light years.
Imaging scope - Takahashi FSQ-106ED f5 refractor at prime focus
Camera - Canon 40D
Filter - Astronomik CLS
Acquisition - Canon EOS Utility
Autoguiding - TMB 80 mm f6 refractor, Imaging Source DBK 21AF04.AS camera, EQ6 Pro mount and PHD guiding software.
Exposure - 21 x 300 seconds
Dark frames, Flats used.
Software - Nebulosity for focus, aligning and stacking. Photoshop CS3 with Noel's Actions and Russell Croman's Gradient Xterminator.

Temperature 12.5° C to 6° C

Messier 57, the Ring nebula

2009-05-29T10:45:00.019+01:00

Planetary nebulae are some of the most colourful jewels of the night sky, this Ring nebula in Lyra was added to Charles Messier's catalogue in 1779. It's usually one of the first objects I show visitors as it never fails to please.

The sky started with a thin high haze which eventually cleared allowing me to keep 34 subs out the original 40 exposed, but shortly after I moved to my next target, the haze had returned with a vengeance, also the first light of dawn was just creeping up the horizon.

The first image is the full frame with just a few pixels nibbled off each edge to hide the dark alignment edges. I like wide shots like these, as it shows the nebula in its environment, the nebula is situated midway between Beta (Sheliak) and Gamma (Sulafat) Lyra. I would suggest that Sheliak is the bright star at the top and Sulafat that small quartet of stars at the bottom of the frame.

Click on the images for a enlarged view.

Hmm, it's niggling me now, I should have turned the camera 90° so those two stars had more breathing space. Note to self.

This second image is a closer crop to show the detail in the ring, within the ring is a 15th magnitude white dwarf star.

Constellation: Lyra. Distance 1,600 to 2,300 light years.
Imaging scope - Takahashi FSQ-106ED f5 refractor at prime focus
Camera - Canon 40D
Filter - Astronomik CLS
Acquisition - Canon EOS Utility
Autoguiding - TMB 80 mm f6 refractor, Imaging Source DBK 21AF04.AS camera, EQ6 Pro mount and PHD guiding software.
Exposure - 34 x 120 seconds
Dark frames, Flats used.
Software - Nebulosity for focus, aligning and stacking. Photoshop CS3 with Noel's Actions and Russell Croman's Gradient Xterminator.

Temperature 11° Celsius

CLS Clipfilter

2009-04-09T18:12:00.010+01:00

I've now fitted my Canon 40D with an Astronomik CLS clip filter, it's a light pollution filter. Up until now I've been using one that fits inside the T ring attachment of my telescope, which limited its use to the telescope.

The clip filter sits in front of the mirror and behind the lens throat, and allows me to use the filter with my camera lenses for those really wide shots I'm wanting to take. A secondary benefit is, it should keep dust out of the mirror box and off the sensor.

NB: It doesn't work with all lenses or cameras, so check if you are considering purchasing one.

The next step with this camera is to have it modified, but that'll wait until the warranty expires sometime in December.

Open night at Kingfisher

2009-03-27T21:07:00.018Z

It was a bit of an open night tonight at Kingfisher, last month I'd promised my next door neighbour's young daughter a look at Saturn through the telescope. But first around 18:52 UT we started with the fly past of the Space Shuttle and the ISS, actually we missed the shuttle, but we saw the space station sneaking over. To be truefull we nearly missed that as well, it was with good fortune that Mrs A saw it half way across the sky.

We then waited until nightfall and pointed the Tak at Saturn, it's a most beautiful planet, the rings are almost edge on, but we could see the shadow of the rings across the disc. We also saw a number of the planets moons, and spent around 35 minutes just looking at this wonderful object. For a few minutes we did have a look at M44 the Bee hive cluster, but when I saw the clouds rolling in, we used the last minutes of clear sky to watch Saturn eventually fade from sight.

Apparently, our young neighbour thought it was "cool"

Yours truly having a look at Saturn.

Takahashi 7 x 50 Finder scope

2009-03-27T14:18:00.008Z

I've just recently obtained a finder scope and its made life so much easier, doing a three star alignment and even framing an object on the Canon's sensor is simple.

The finder has an illuminated interrupted crosshair. I've made the horizontal crosshair parallel with the base of the DSLR, and aligned the finder with the Tak at f8, fl 850 mm. More often than not I'm imaging at Prime focus f5, 530 mm, so the alignment is accurate.

After doing that the crosshair is bang in the middle of the sensor. I wished I'd got one earlier.
As the finder scope gives an inverted image, I have to remember, up is for down and right is for left and the converse is true.

Messier 51, The Whirlpool galaxy

2009-03-19T14:51:00.025Z

As the galaxy season is upon us, I decided to point the Tak at M51 the Whirlpool galaxy, actually there's two galaxies here, the second being the smaller companion NGC 5195, which appears to be attached to the larger Whirlpool's arm. However, I understand that it may be a line of sight illusion.

The sky was a bit hazy last night, cloud and fog started to roll in about 01:40 UT, also unusually nothing went wrong, software talked to hardware and vice versa, strange feeling that, especially when you just waiting for everything to go pear shaped. Not that I'm complaining mind.

The first image shows the full frame, with just a few pixels nibbled off each edge, due to the alignment process.
Then a closer crop.

Constellation: Canes Venatici. Distance: 37 Million Light years
Imaging scope - Takahashi FSQ-106ED f5 refractor at prime focus
Camera - Canon 40D
Filter - Astronomik CLS
Acquisition - Canon EOS Utility
Autoguiding - TMB 80 mm f6 refractor, Imaging Source DBK 21AF04.AS camera, EQ6 Pro mount and PHD guiding software.
Exposure - 42 x 300 seconds at ISO 1600
Dark, Bias frames and Flats used.
Software - Nebulosity for focusing, aligning and stacking of images. Photoshop CS3 with Noel's Actions and Russell Croman's Gradient Xterminator.

Temperature between 5° and 1° Celsius

Astronomy Now - Picture of the month - April 2009

2009-03-18T15:17:00.011Z

I was pleasantly surprised this afternoon to find that my image of the Rosette nebula, was chosen as Picture of the Month, in the April issue of Astronomy Now magazine. Nice.

M1 the Crab nebula, combined.

2009-02-06T15:32:00.005Z

This is a Median combine in Registar of the two previous images.

One of the images taken with the Tak FSQ-106ED at f5 and the second image taken with the Tak at f8 with 1.6 x extender.

M1 The Crab nebula

2009-01-26T11:15:00.011Z

A supernova remnant, the remains of a star which exploded in 1054, and recorded by Chinese astronomers or would they be astrologers? I suppose in their time these terms were interchangeable.

I had to act fast to get the subs that make this image up, the weather forecast was for cloud around 20:00, I was taking the first sub at 19:06. Which is the worst time, for the East coast main line runs along the bottom of my garden and between 19:00 and 20:00, every train and its grandmother passes along that track. I managed 7 subs between trains then the inevitable happened, those promised clouds rolled in.

Obviously it needs more exposure, also I've cropped it substantially as the image scale is small, next time I'll shoot at f8 by fitting the 1.6 X extender to the Tak.

Constellation: Taurus. Distance 6,300 light years.
Imaging scope - Takahashi FSQ-106ED f5 refractor at prime focus
Camera - Canon 40D
Filter - Astronomik CLS
Acquisition - Canon EOS Utility
Autoguiding - TMB 80 mm f6 refractor, Imaging Source DBK 21AF04.AS camera, EQ6 Pro mount and PHD guiding software.
Exposure - 4 x 300, 1 x 251, 1 x 160 and 1 x 133 seconds
Dark frames, no Flats used.
Software - Nebulosity aligning and stacking. Photoshop CS3 with Noel's Actions.
Temperature 2° Celsius

The Rosette nebula and a couple of galaxies

2009-01-24T20:50:00.032Z

Last night, it was 9 p.m. before the sky had cleared, and Orion was hiding from the waist down behind my neighbour's Poplar tree, I was unable to get the subs I desperately need of B33, so I pointed the Tak elsewhere.

The Rosette nebula in Monoceros, an object having 4 NGC numbers assigned to it, 2237, 2238, 2239 and 2246, also, we mustn't forget the open star cluster in the centre, NGC 2244.

The Rosette is bathed in Doncaster's light pollution and while processing it, I had to whack the image a couple of times with a shovel, to wrest out the data from the pollutant light. I'm not 100% certain I've totally succeeded, nonetheless the colour I find pleasing.

The dark stringy like tendrils are Bok globules regions of dark dense gas.

This image is Picture of the Week at the British Astronomical Association, 27th January 2009.

Constellation: Monoceros. Distance 5,000 light years.
Imaging scope - Takahashi FSQ-106ED f5 refractor at prime focus
Camera - Canon 40D
Filter - Astronomik CLS
Acquisition - Canon EOS Utility
Autoguiding - TMB 80 mm f6 refractor, Imaging Source DBK 21AF04.AS camera, EQ6 Pro mount and PHD guiding software.
Exposure - 19 x 300 seconds
Dark frames, Flats and Dark flats used.
Software - Nebulosity aligning and stacking. Photoshop CS3 with Noel's Actions.
Temperature 2° C to -0.4° C

The second image is a pair of Messier galaxies, M81 Bode's galaxy and M82 The Cigar galaxy, situated in Ursa Major. The telescope was pointing straight up for these beauty's, and I grabbed as many exposures as possible, in an earlier posting I mentioned the fact that the Canon DSLR shut down when the temperature reached -1.7° Celsius. Well it doesn't, whilst taking some of these frames, the temperature reached -1.8° Celsius, and the computer cannot talk to the camera, so it's a USB 2 cable and passive booster problem. I attached a Canon TC80N3 timer to the camera and continued to make exposures, until the front objective dewed up, the power tank operating the dew straps, was flat.

M82, the one on the left, is a starburst galaxy and is busy doing what these galaxies do, in this image you can see a hint of the violence that is taking place, the red Ha area, which my standard Canon is totally ineffectual at capturing, because it isn't sensitive to Ha light.

M82, is a Grand design spiral galaxy, what everyone's idea of a galaxy should look like.

Constellation: Ursa Major. Distance 12 million light years.
Imaging scope - Takahashi FSQ-106ED f5 refractor at prime focus
Camera - Canon 40D
Filter - Astronomik CLS
Acquisition - Canon EOS Utility
Autoguiding - TMB 80 mm f6 refractor, Imaging Source DBK 21AF04.AS camera, EQ6 Pro mount and PHD guiding software.
Exposure - 17 x 300 seconds
Dark frames, Flats and Dark flats used.
Software - Nebulosity aligning and stacking. Photoshop CS3 with Noel's Actions.
Temperature -0.4° C to -1.8° C

The Horse Head nebula

2008-12-27T21:27:00.021Z

I make no apology for posting another image of this dark nebula and of the other objects in its environs, but I've decided to dispense with any butterfly like attitude and stick with this object until I get a decent image. Now, I'm not suggesting at all that this is a a decent image, but it is a few more subexposure that can be added to my previous ones. Hopefully.

Robert Gendler whose work I admire appears to take exposures over many nights, so that's my ruse, then I realise while we may point our telescopes at the same Universe they are most certainly not looking through the same skies.

On Boxing Day the BBC weather site was very suggestive of clear skies, I prepared my instruments with eager anticipation and one hour after starting both scopes were mounted on the recently installed pier (see posting but one below). One consequence of having this pier means that my cables between the mount and computer are now a little too short, because it's further away from the house than the tripod mounted scopes were. My warm room is the rear sitting room, the cables use to pass through the window twixt laptop and scopes, now they have to take a more direct route through the patio doors, which obviously have to be ajar.

Even so some of the cables are taut across the patio, notably both motorised focuser cables and the ST4 mount guider cable which has already lost the plastic clip from the FCC68 connector and as a result of this the connector keeps falling out of the Shoestring GPUSB unit, I solved that by using a small screwdriver to jam it in place. Note to self, crimp a new one on.

I looked up the sky was clear-ish, I could see Orion from the waist up over my Eastward neighbour's roof top, threatening clouds were approaching from the West.

I then spent a frustrating 20 minutes wondering why the guide camera on the guiding scope wouldn't focus, the Focus Max showed that the Feathertouch was indeed moving. Examining the telescope proved that I'd inadvertently left a superfluous 2" extension tube in the imaging train, also whilst exiting the warm room I brushed against the focus cables which pulled the Serial Express card part way out of the laptop, the motorised focusers are connected to that, this went unnoticed for a further 10 minutes.

Orion was climbing higher, but the clouds were across his nether regions, Mrs A complains of being cold and leaves to turn the heating higher and stayed in the front room.

I finally pointed the telescope at B33 and framed Alnitak in the viewfinder of the DSLR, Orion had finally thrown off the clouds and I used EOS Utility Live View to focus on that blue giant star. A test shot, I didn't like the composition, reframe the DSLR, another one, a bit better. Alnitak has gone, gone behind the clouds that is. I wait and wait, it clears, another test shot and that's it, I start a series of 20 x 5 minute exposures. The clouds are back, I stop the series and examine the first two, there's some wispy stuff, so those are deleted. I take a dark frame, the clouds clear and the light exposures are restarted. I keep an eye on the sky also being careful not to snag the cables as I leave the warm, well warmish room. The outside temperature feels cooler than the forecast 2° Celsius, I check a digital thermometer and that reads -0.5° Celsius. A crust has formed on the instruments, frost.

Returning to the computer, I keep an eye on the thermometer. After a few exposures the timer in EOS Utility has stuck at 2 minutes 40 seconds, it's not advancing. The software refuses to quit, I have to Force quit. On restarting the software it will not connect to the camera, the thermometer now reads -1.7° Celsius. The camera's covered in a hard crust of sparkling ice, but the top LCD display is still working, in desperation I wrap a couple of towels around it, but to no avail.

The camera's got frostbite, and the telescopes have the sticky tacky feeling of ice that's trying to take the top layer of skin from my bare fingers. I slowly start to disassemble my equipment and look at the clear sky with envious eyes, it's only 22:50.

Constellation: Orion. Distance to B33, 1,500 light years
Imaging scope - Takahashi FSQ-106ED f5 refractor at prime focus
Camera - Canon 40D
Filter - Astronomik CLS
Acquisition - Canon EOS Utility
Autoguiding - TMB 80 mm f6 refractor, Imaging Source DBK 21AF04.AS camera, EQ6 Pro mount and PHD guiding software.
Exposure - 9 x 300 seconds
9 Darks, 14 Dark Flats and 30 Flat frames
Software - Nebulosity, aligning and stacking. Photoshop CS3 and Noel's Actions.

NB: I only managed to obtain 1 Dark frame before the camera went kaput. However, over the last few imaging sessions I've been building a library of Darks at varying temperatures, so I used 8 Darks from that library.

The Kingfisher setup

2008-12-17T08:41:00.051Z

Over the past twelve months my observatory has been slowly evolving, yesterday this culminated in the fastening of a steel pier to a concrete pad, which will support my EQ6 Pro mount and optical instruments.

Even though I have a large garden, I was restricted to where I could fit the pier with regards to street lights, neighbours' security lights, boundary trees and the East coast main line which runs along the bottom of the garden. Taking all these into consideration, the only place to put it was near to the house. Not ideal, but at this location the telescopes have the maximum if some what restricted view of the sky and are shielded from the worst glare of the street lights, and I have a nearby warm room.

Elsewhere, I've read of people pouring 1 cubic metre of concrete to support their pier, I considered that no matter how much concrete I poured, the fast trains would invariably vibrate the pier. So I made a hole 75 cms square and 40 cms deep, filled the bottom with some rubble and hand mixed the concrete to make this pad. I'm certain it's heavy enough to stop the fully laden pier from falling over.

Some time in the future I may consider building a wooden decking around the pier and some form of enclosure, but a full blown observatory building at this time, is out of the question. The telescopes are stored separately from the mount.

The mount carries a Takahashi FSQ-106ED f5 refractor and a APM TMB 80 mm f6 refractor. I replaced the original EQ6 dovetail puck with an Ampuck from Ambermile. This allowed me to fit a William Optics saddle which accepts a Losmandy DSBS plate for mounting the telescopes side by side.

This is the Canon 40D at prime focus on the Takahashi FSQ-106ED

This Imaging Source DBK 21AF04.AS camera is used for autoguiding with the TMB refractor it's also used as a planetary camera on my society's Meade

Both telescopes are fitted with motorised focusers, the Takahashi with a Robofocus and the TMB with a Feathertouch motor, allowing both of the telescopes to be remotely focused from a computer.

I've replaced the original azimuth and altitude adjustment bolts with these stainless steel ones, manufactured by Astrodevelopments. These allow fine adjustments of the mount whilst drift aligning and are considerably better than the bendy originals.

M45 The Pleiades

2008-11-26T13:06:00.040Z

This is my latest attempt at the Seven Sisters open star cluster in Taurus. The lights were captured through gaps in the clouds and on the odd occasions that it was clear, they always appeared to be a high hazy layer, causing a twinkling that Mozart would've recognised.

Constellation: Taurus. Distance 380 light years.
Imaging scope - Takahashi FSQ-106ED f5 refractor at prime focus
Camera - Canon 40D
Filter - Astronomik CLS
Acquisition - Canon EOS Utility
Autoguiding - TMB 80 mm f6 refractor, Imaging Source DBK 21AF04.AS camera, EQ6 Pro mount and PHD guiding software.
Exposure - 16 x 300 seconds
Dark frames, Flats and Dark flats used.
Software - Nebulosity, aligning and stacking. Photoshop CS3 with Noel's Actions and Russell Croman's Gradient Xterminator.

Edit: This image was published in Astronomy Now magazine, Picture gallery, March 2009 issue.