The best of 2006!

Well, here we are at the end of another year. I've been trying out astro-imaging now for about two years and built up quite an array of telescopes and equipment. As I look back to 2006, March and April seems to have been the best months. Captured some nice images of Saturn and Jupiter and some nice Deep Space Objects with my Skywatcher ST80 during this time. Summer was long and hot, in fact the hottest Summer on record! Although I tried to capture some DSO's at this time I did'nt have much success, mainly because I simply could not find them.

I feel a bit frustrated because I want to try to image new objects, but my knowledge of the skies are a bit limited. It's great to see colourful star maps in magazines and even using a computer map to find objects, but when i'm in the garden with hazy skies and light pollution it's challenge to find objects.

My decision to go computerised and try out the Celestron Nexstar system will be interesting. Theoretically, I should be able to find even faint objects easily...I hope so!

So what was the highlight of 2006? I have to say capturing images of the Swan 2006 Comet! It was wonderful to see the comet so easily and track it during late October and November! So here it is again...

My Christmas pressy!

Christmas has been and gone! I think the best part of Christmas is getting ready for it, especially when you work in school with children. The weeks leading up to Christmas with the Nativity Play, Christmas Carols, Christmas Dinner, Christmas Mass.... I could go on forever! Kids love it! Teachers love it too...honest! Thank you for all the presents brought in by the children in my class. One really nice present from Megan - A lovely Space 2007 Calendar now sits proudly on my desk.

So what did Santa bring me this year?

A super Celestron SLT Computer Controlled Telescope - Nexstar. I thought for some time before deciding to go for this one. Reviews have been good and the mount can be controlled from the handset or a laptop computer. My problem at the moment is that finding objects in space, particularly smaller objects are hard to find and somketimes I never find them at all. Although I know roughly where to look in the sky for objects like the Whirlpool Galaxy and the Pinwheel Galaxy, I cannot locate them. The SLT will hopefully allow me find these objects and maybe image them. The SLT mount came with Celestron 60mm scope, but it is only the mount that I want to use so I have now put my Skywatcher ST80 onto the mount which gives me a much richer field of view.

The weather this week has been misty and yesterday and today raining. Tonight the sky has cleared and the Moon is visible, but the wet atmosphere has made it difficult to see any stars. I think i'll wait for a clear night to try align and try out the SLT.

It never rains...

It never rains..but it pours! This week has brought some awful weather, even when the skies were clear, the wind was howling! Back garden is thoroughly water-logged...not good for bringing out the scopes!
I have now got the dovetail from 'Scopes 'n' Skies' and a USB adaptor from Maplin, so all go for the SLT after Christmas.
Tomorrow is forecast to be clear and sunny. If I manage to wake up around dawn i'm hoping to see the triangle of planets just before sunrise. Mars, Mercury and Saturn will rise together just before the sun. I have never seen Mercury yet, so this could be a first!

The image above is my first attempt at of The Orion Nebula (M42)taken a year ago (when the weather was better!) Image taken with my Skywatcher 130m on 12th December 2005 and processed with Registax 3.

Nearly Christmas!

Did some Christmas shopping yesterday, got a copy of 'BANG!" all about the begining of the universe. Well...it is a Christmas present, so I won't get chance to read it until Christmas!

It's a quiet period at the moment, tonight the full moon is beautiful, but the wind is blowing at 70mph...not good for getting the scope out. I've just got a serial lead for the SLT scope and have ordered a dovetail for the ST80 to mount on the SLT. I now need an USB to RS232 converter so that I can run my laptop to the SLT for computer control. I'm looking forward to trying out the computer controlled mount on a crisp, frosty night when Orion is in all it's glory!

Snug and warm in my little shack, pity I can't control the SLT from here!

Crab Nebula (M1) from JMU

Today I received my latest image from the JMU Robotic Telescope in La Palma. A great image of the Crab Nebula with loads of detail. Quite a lot of work by me went into processing the raw data to produce this image along with others with different colour filters.

It's getting cold now outside...puts me off going into the garden...rather be here in my cosy room submitting jobs to the robotic telescopes and processing the results. This is the 'boring' bit of imaging, not much of interest at the moment to see that my scopes can see. Orion is coming, can see it in the South East at Midnight. Should be great to get a chance to image the Orion Nebula and maybe a bit more. Orion is my favourite constellation and the Orion Nebula is quite special.

Celestron SLT Mount

After a lot of thought i've decided to to buy a Celestron SLT GoTo Computerised mount. Having read the reviews and visited the Nexstar resource site, I am convinced! It seems that you can't get JUST the mount, you have to get one with a scope fitted.

My plan is to put the Skywatcher ST80 onto the SLT mount and even try the Skywatcher 130. (The 130 might be a bit heavy, but we will see!)

So...i've bought the 60mm SLT which is the cheapest and maybe discard the scope bit...the SLT mount is the same regardless. Now it has arrived, I have put it away for my Christmas present.

Uranus

Earlier last month Uranus could be seen low in the Southern Sky, trouble is...I can't see it! So I called on the BRT Robotic Telescope to image it for me. You can see Uranus and one of it's moons. Uranus is in the lower left corner.




Tonight is bonfire night, lots of bangs and pops, it's also a full moon shrouded by cloud and smoke. Autumn is here, dark, damp and misty. I'm thinking about buying a Celestron GoTo scope for Christmas. A difficult decision this, will be able to find objects easily with the computer controlled mount but may find imaging disappointing because of the rotation of the Alt- Az mount. I'm wondering if Registax 4 with it's multiple alignment will overcome the imaging problem.

Comet Swan 2006

The Comet Swan 2006

Here is the first time that I have seen and imaged a Comet!
I remember back in 1997 when the Comet Hale-Bopp was a spectacular naked eye object in the sky, something I will always remember!
Last night was the first clear night for ages, I waited early in the evening for the sky in the west to fully clear then had a go at imaging Comet Swan located in Hercules. Tried different exposures with the Toucam Pro II and ST80 short refractor telescope. The image above is probably the best I could manage, 40 exposures set at 20s frames then processed at multipoint with Registax 4 to stop the stars from streaking. Amazing to see the movement of the comet when you are taking longer exposure images - it really does move with respect to the stars! On reflection I should really have taken longer exposures, maybe one minute subs to try to capture the faint tail of Comet Swan. Tracking of the ST80 with it's EQ1 mount was almost spot-on.

Tonight it is clear again, but we also have a 90% Moon rising early which lights up the whole sky, beautiful to look at, but makes it hard to image Comet Swan.

Perfect Night

Pleiades on Wednesday Night with the brighter stars Atlas, Pleiane, Alcyone and Merope - about half of the Pleiades open cluster.

Wednesday night brought almost perfect conditions, I set up both scopes to see what I could capture. Found the Dumbell Nebula and Ring Nebula with no problem using my Skywatcher 130m, tracking seemed good, so I tried to image the Dumbell. In the eyepiece there it was clear as a bell (dumbell!!) but with the camera it just ain't there...weird! The Pleiades was in full view so tried an image with the ST80 and focal reducer to capture the whole of the open cluster. Trouble is Pleiades is quite large and could only manage part of it. A beautiful sight visually with the ST80!
Bought a copy of 'Universe' by DK, a superb book with an incredible amount of information about the science involved and lovely images.
My plans for this week are to image my first comet. The SWAN COMET is currently in Hercules very near M13 and is visually quite bright, conditions look good during this week so watch this space!

Digital Natives

Teepees for the 'Digital Natives' at the conference


The weather now is turning quite Autumnal, but the temperature is still well above average with no frost yet. The Busy Lizzies and Marigolds in my garden are still thriving! Its half term and the last week brought the ICT Conference which was thoroughly enjoyable with Will Richardson from the USA giving a great insight into Blogging. Check out the Will Richardson Blog with loads of stuff about the conference.
On the Astro theme...kids pick things up so easily, they are Digital Natives, technology is part of their lives! Older people however can be called Digital Imigrants, the technology is there but we are learning. So can we get the kids to turn to the skies and look at the technology that brings us images of objects light years away and sends spaceships to image the outer planets? I'm trying...by using the Robotic Telescopes, kids can have time on the Faulkes Telescope and request jobs to the Bradford Robotic Telescope and we are doing that. Let's see what happens!

M1 The Crab Nebula (At last!)

I've waited ages for this image...it's the famous Crab Nebula, this supernova was noted on July 4, 1054 A.D. by Chinese astronomers as a new or "guest star," and was about four times brighter than Venus.

I have tried to find this object myself but without success, so again, I turned to the BRT to take a picture of this DSO.

The image was processed first with the FITS applet and then split into RGB channels with PSP and adjusted Gamma and contrast. The image above is the green channel which shows some detail of the filaments in M1. I really like this image, been worth waiting for!

Here is the info:

Request ID 36664
Job ID 25751
Object Type MESSIER
Object ID 1
Object Name The Crab Nebula
Exposure Time 120000 ms
Filter Type Colour
Dark frame Instant
Site Name Tenerife
Telescope Type Name Galaxy
Telescope Name Galaxy Camera
Request Time 23:16 on Friday 22 September 2006 (22:16:11 UTC)
Completion Time 03:09 on Monday 2 October 2006 (02:09:42 UTC)
Comments The Crab Nebula
Status Complete

M31 and M110 a nice pair!

This is latest image from the BRT of the Andromeda Galaxy but this time taken with the cluster camera and adjusting the exposure. After some processing with Photoshop and PSP5 the results are fantastic! You can see M110 the partner galaxy to Andromeda which I cannot see with my own images.

Saw a lovely view of Orion the other morning, can't wait for it to appear in the sky in the evening!

Here are the details fro BRT of M31 and M110:

Your Job

Request ID 37057
Job ID 26661
Object Type MESSIER
Object ID 31
Object Name The Andromeda Galaxy
Exposure Time 60000 ms
Filter Type Colour
Dark frame Instant
Site Name Tenerife
Telescope Type Name Cluster
Telescope Name Cluster Camera
Request Time 22:18 on Thursday 28 September 2006 (21:18:11 UTC)
Completion Time 05:16 on Sunday 1 October 2006 (04:16:46 UTC)
Comments M31 Wide Field
Status Complete

M33 Triangulum Galaxy

Although we had a couple of good nights for imaging this week I found it difficult to get the scope pointing and tracking correctly. Cygnus is now more or less zenith (straight up!)making it hard to point, but Andromeda (M33) is very easy to find. I spent some time trying again to capture that 'memorable' image, but couldn't get the tracking spot on. Meanwhile the BRT is doing some more imaging for me, have a nice image of M33 Triangulum Galaxy after quite a bit of processing with the FITS applet and Paint Shop Pro.

Tropical Weather

Well, it's the Autumnal Equinox and the weather doesn't know what day it is! Later today the back end of a hurricane hits the west of the country with winds approaching 90mph, but the temperature will also hit 25 degrees! The south east is having a heatwave...weird.

Yesterday I recieved an interesting image that I submitted from the JML telescope of NGC266 located in Andromeda somewhere (I have still not found it!) This is a feint galaxy which cannot normally be seen with my own equipment. With a bit of processing from Photoshop and LTimage the results are really nice!

Observation of NGC 266.

Taken for SS Osmund and Andrew s RC Primary School.

On 18 Sep 2006 at 23:04:00 GMT.

By the Liverpool Telescope using RATCam.

The exposure was 120.00 seconds using filter R.

The Little Dumbell Nebula (M76)

When I saw this it blew my cotton socks off!!
This image was taken with the Liverpool John Mills University Robotic Telescope (JMU)located in La Palma in the Canary Island. I submitted a job for M76, set up the exposure time etc and waited for the result.

The resulting image was processed with LTImage, which came as a free download from the JMU site and processes FITS type image information. This, along with some processing in Photoshop gave some amazing results! Really pleased, but the JMU telescope seems a bit limited in what objects it offers in the way of observations. The website is is great for schools and has tons of useful information. www.schoolsobservatory.org.uk

Here are the details:

Observation of M76. (The Little Dumbell Nebula)

On 15 Sep 2006 at 00:04:00 GMT.

By the Liverpool Telescope using RATCam.

The exposure was 120.00 seconds using filter HA.

Distance to object: 3.3 thousand light years away

Telescope Dimensions
Height: 8.5 metres
Weight: 24 tonnes
Mirror Diameter: 2 metres
Mirror Weight: 1.25 tonne

The Andromeda Problem

I have tried and tried to get detail from imaging M101 - The Andromeda Galaxy with my own set up. Last night I used my ST80 and managed to image up to 1 minute with the EQ1 tracking motor working fine. I can see some detail (dust lanes) but I want the ultimate image of this beast. The nearest galaxy to ours, but the most difficult to image.

Meanwhile, the BRT has been doing some imaging for me.

I like this image, the colour is cool!

Here are the details...

Your Job

Request ID 36181
Job ID 25760
Object Type MESSIER
Object ID 31
Object Name The Andromeda Galaxy
Exposure Time 120000 ms
Filter Type Colour
Dark frame Instant
Site Name Tenerife
Telescope Type Name Galaxy
Telescope Name Galaxy Camera
Request Time 11:23 on Wednesday 13 September 2006 (10:23:54 UTC)
Completion Time 03:36 on Friday 15 September 2006 (02:36:04 UTC)
Comments Andromeda for Liz
Status Complete

The Dumbell Nebula

The Bradford Robotic Telescope has been down for re-fitting over Summer, but now it's back!

In the last week before the school holidays we had a 'Space Day' with the children in my class. One of the children (Kris) submitted a job to the BRT for the Dumbell Galaxy (M27), Kris was quite excited about seeing this 'object' in space from the BRT so here it is in all it's glory! Not an easy object to image with a telescope as it is very feint and ghostly.

Last night I submitted a job to see if I could capture Uranus...watch this space...might be a disaster but we'll see!

Here are the settings for the BRT for our M27 image:

Request ID 33686
Job ID 24357
Object Type MESSIER
Object ID 27
Object Name The Dumbell Nebula
Exposure Time 100000 ms
Filter Type Colour
Dark frame Instant
Site Name Tenerife
Telescope Type Name Galaxy
Telescope Name Galaxy Camera
Request Time 10:37 on Tuesday 18 July 2006 (09:37:57 UTC)
Completion Time 01:43 on Thursday 7 September 2006 (00:43:06 UTC)
Comments Dumbell (Kris)
Status Complete

Double Cluster

Tonight brought a partial eclipse of the Moon and a Full Moon as well! Sky crystal clear! The Moon came up quite late and low in the sky at the time of the eclipse but the view was amazing, almost as though someone or something had bit a lump out of the top. A beautiful sight, but even though I set up my equipment it was not possible to image, such a shame! Instead I had a go at the Double Cluster in Perseus with my ST80 and focal reducer, hopefully this would give me a wide field view which shows both clusters together, something I cannot do with the Skywatcher 130m. The results were very pleasing! Easy to find and easy to image, even with a full moon!

Holiday Sunset

After the deluge...the sunset!

Well...end of my holidays...back to work tomorrow! Rain, Rain, Rain for the last two weeks, yesterday and today was abominable! Then, suddenly...the skies clear and sunshine at 6.00pm tonight...too late!
If it stays like this I might have a look outside later with the ST80, but the back garden is waterlogged so might need the wellies!

It can only get better!

Holidays

Well, coming to the end of my six weeks holiday! Two weeks in Devon (lovely!) Weather was superb but back here in the North not so good.
Last night brought thr clearest night for months so I decided to attempt M31 The Andromeda Galaxy using my ST80 with focal reducer to give a wide field. I recently bought an EQ1 motor so I thought I would try it out tonight. A bit fiddly to set up with the Focal Reducer and M31 difficult to find with the scope even though I could find it easy with the bins. Eventually got the motor tracking to take images of up to 30s. Although M31 is there in wide field, I still can't seem to capture the detail.. Here is my best attempt, you can see some detail, but it is a pig to image!