M33 from 16th Oct 2009

Scrapping the barrel here... here's M33 from last month, 9 minutes worth of data. Rain stop play!
Takahashi SKY-90 with flattener, Canon 50D, 30sec subs, darks & bias applied.

One of these days the rains gonna stop!

Exploring the Apollo 17 Site.

This is great, some really hi-res images of the Apollo 17 landing site from the LROC, which is now at its correct 50-kilometer mapping orbit.
Click on the link below.
LROC News System.

Above; view from the LRV TV camera after lift off.

ALSJ

Here's my best view.

Clavius, Scheiner & Copernicus 28th Oct 2009

Just a very quick imaging session tonight. The seeing wasn't up to much... and I'm recovering from a bad cold, so I didn't want to be sitting in the cold for too long :-)

SKYnyx 2-0M with IR filter, 3 x TV barlow. Processed in Registax and CS4.

Space junk... wow!

Credit

Rant: People with lights on all night...

... in their back gardens, don't you just luv'em. What's that all about?
Sending my skyglow up another notch!

Another work in progress.

Here's a sneak preview of something that I've been working on the last few weeks.
I just need to re-stack some frames to get them to match.

NB; Blogspot has reduced the image size.

M31 - 3 Hour 40 Minutes of subs.

A bit more data from the other night :-)

Full size version here.
Only about 20 hours to go!

LPOD 12th Oct 2009.

These are always really nice to get; Lunar picture of the day.
Makes it all worth while :-)

Clavius.
Stay tuned for Chuck Wood’s “Exploring the Moon” column in the January 2010 issue of Sky and Telescope

M31 with more data.

I was out again last night to capture some more data for M31. This image a 2hour 34min in total, taken from 30sec subs. Darks, flats and bias applied.
Still not sure about the colour, looks a bit monochromatic green to me.

Since my scope was reaching the edge of the shed imaging M31... and everything comes to an abrupt end. I thought I'd finish off the night with an easy target.
The double cluster in Perseus, NGC 869 and NGC 884.

There's so many stars in this region :-o

M31 12th Oct 2009

Still plugging away at M31, trying different techniques. Here's 1hr 27mins from last night.

Aw gawd! I'm off again, re-processing already... I find M31 so tricky to process. My sky pollution is quite high and it obscures the nebulosity of the galaxy, so you have to make nasty compromises with the levels etc. in PS.

LCROSS Crater Cabeus taken with the Palomar Observatory's 200-inch (5-meter) Hale Telescope 10 secs after impact.

Well, if this telescope didn't catch anything, what hope did we have? ;-)
Nice image though.

Credit Caltech
Here's my image taken last month.

... and others from last year.

LCROSS impact point.

The LCROSS spacecraft is going to impact at crater Cabeus on the 8th/9th of this month.
Here are some images of the area that I've taken over the years, and a map to find it... it's tricky.
Although we won't see it from the UK, well, maybe a dust cloud later ;-)

LCROSS

Enhanced colour Moon - 1st Oct 2009

Below; 12 image mosaic taken with SKYnyx, IR filter and C9.25 prime focus.

Someone's trying to copy me...

Mercury and Venus from the Messenger probe.

Credit: NASA / JHUAPL / CIW

Jupiter, Moon and the Moon 29th Sept 2009

Shot with Canon 200mm lens.

You'll need a big monitor to get it all in. If you use Google Chrome use the Ctrl + & - to re-size.

Waxing gibbous Moon 29th Sept 2009

M31 & M45 27th Sept 2009

Managed to get out last night with my Takahashi, first time for ages :-)
Thought I'd try some easy targets M31 & M45, although not so easy to process.
I imaged M31 for 2 hours and M45 for 1 before calling it a day(night) at 3:00 in the morning... zzzzz.
When I finished, my C9.25 (which was piggy backing the Tak) corrector plate was covered in ice!
I realised that after moving to M45, that the scope wasn't quite in sharp focus, so some of these stars are a bit bloated.

Larger wide field view... processed another way.


I re-processed this to show a more realistic representation of the data collected, rather than over stretch it.

ESA Mars rover.

Just found this on the BBC news website about the ESA Mars rover camera tests... using a couple of DMK's, neat.

Credit BBC

Jupiter 25th Sept 2009

Poor seeing... and then it clouded over... ho hum!

Jupiter 21st Sept 2009

Almost an hour later. Red filter.

Jupiter LRGB - 21st Sept 2009

Jupiter & Io - 21st Sept 2009

4 x imagemate, Red filter and Skynyx 2-0M camera.

Warning; CGE mount tripod leg screws.

Just a word of warning for anyone using a CGE mount.
I was messing about in my observatory today and found that the screws that fix the legs to the tripod head were quite loose. I presume this is because they are supposed to be flexible for when you move the legs. But there was a fair amount of play in them, so I tightened them up for good measure (since it isn't moving anywhere soon).
They're the hex screws at the bottom of the pic, two per leg.
When you consider how much weight is sitting on top of that tripod, you don't want any movement at all ;-)

Going around the bend! - 3Dfication.

Here's another one of those image manipulation programs. This one is by Niels Noordhoek.
This is an image of the full Moon that I took last year.

3D Moon, red & blue glasses needed.

NB. I always find the best thing to do is to move closer to the image whilst viewing, then the 3D pops into your head.
Niels Noordhoek site.

Gassendi & Schiller from 12th Sept 2009

Clavius to Tycho mosaic - 12th Sept 2009

Big pan of North region of the Moon.

I've got up at 4:00 am this morning to do some Moon imaging, but the cloud was too thick. Luckily I woke at 6:00 as well and the clouds had cleared. So it was quick scramble to get some imaging before the Sun rose too high.
Here's the preliminary result that I've been working on all afternoon. I'm knackered ;-)

If you use the Google Chrome browser (which I do all the time) you can use the Ctrl + key to zoom in and out, in MS Windows that is.

Sinus Iridum 11th Sept 2009

Clavius & Plato 11th Sept 2009

Here's one from last night. The seeing was really good when I started :-) But the transparency deteriorated quickly later :-( So I had to push the camera and picked a load of grain in the process & processing ;-(

First image of session.
Plato; using 3 x TV barlow, with the good seeing.

Ptolemaeus, Alphonsus, Arzachel 10th Sept 2009

Bird flight across the Moon.

I caught some birds flying across my field of view whilst imaging the Moon last night.

Gassendi 10th Sept 2009

Tycho 10th Sept 2009

4 image mosaic.

The Moon 10th Sept 2009

Taken with my Takahashi Sky-90 at Prime focus & SKYnyx 2-0M with red filter.

New refurbished Hubble images.

The first snapshots from the refurbished Hubble.

Credit NASA, ESA & Hubble SM4 ERO Team.

OT: Charles Darwin And The Tree Of Life [Video]

I love this.
Click on the credit link below for the video.
Credit Scitechbits.

Credit BBC

Full Moon Tycho 4th Sept 2009

Strange booklet.

I have this strange booklet that I bought from an old second-hand bookshop ages ago.
I always thought that it was from the 19th century, but on reflection I think it may be older, maybe 17th or 18th century.
There is no cover to it and no identifications to its date, it looks like the drawings from a books appendices that have been ripped out.
I like the Moon engraving.
I took out some of them and framed them for my study a while back, probably shouldn't have done that :-(

Full Moon 4th Sept 2009

Takahashi Sky-90, prime focus, Canon EOS 50D, single shot.

Earth passes through the plane of Saturn's rings 4th Sept 2009

Here is my 'Photoshopped' version of the event taken from CalSKY.
September 4th: Saturn’s Rings Do a Disappearing Trick.

Credit CalSKY.