Dawn Spacecraft Launched

NASA's Dawn spacecraft is on its way to study a pair of asteroids after lifting off today from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 7:34 a.m. EDT (4:34 a.m. PDT).

(Click the picture - it's brill!)

My name is now digitally on it's way to the origin of the Solar System contained in a microchip aboard the Dawn Probe...cool!

The spacecraft will arrive at the asteroids Vesta and Cares sometime in 2011.

Harvest Moon

A beautiful Harvest Moon tonight!
The sky is perfectly clear with a real Autumn nip in the air, forecast tonight is frost as high pressure sits over the country. I wonder how many farmers are out in the fields bringing in the harvest in the moonlight?
It is certainly bright enough here!
Took this image from my front garden with the Canon 350D set up on a tripod.

Andromeda Galaxy

This beautiful galaxy has set me a quest - to take a beautiful image of it! I'm getting there slowly!

Now high in the East, Andromeda can be found easily even with binoculars, it is seen as a fuzzy blur. Trying to image it is a challenge as the object is large and the swirls and dust lanes are quite feint.

On the 14th September the sky was perfectly clear and I now have the leads for my camera to run dslr shutter. This means that I can set up the telescope, track my target and take multiple timed exposures with the camera. I decided to take about 100 x 30 second exposures of the Andromeda Galaxy. I set up the equipment and then left it to take the photos automatically controlled by my laptop. I set the format this time for RAW in the hope that I might get a better resolution than the normal JPG format.

Well, all kinds of things started to go wrong....clouds...battery went down in the camera...tracking motor stopped. In the end I managed about 70 exposures and then stacked them in Deepskystacker.

The result above is after hours of processing and stacking.

I have the images in FIT format as well and i'm sure the results will be super in a suitable FITs processor, but I can't seem to get one working! Still, something to play with later perhaps!

M81 and M82

These are known as 'Bodes Galaxy' and the 'Cigar Galaxy' they are in the constellation of Ursa Major. I have seen them before with my Skywatcher 130 reflector, but not easy to find.

On Tuesday the night sky was wonderful, so I set up the ST80 and SLS computerised mount to point at Ursa Major and try to image M81, M82, Whirlpool Galaxy and Pinwheel Galaxy.

Again, the SLT mount along with 'Starry Night' was superb! I managed to image all of these with the Canon 350D. The Pinwheel Galaxy and the Whirlpool Galaxy was a bit feint and needed more and maybe longer exposures, but i'm so pleased that I captured them!

I now need a lead for dslr shutter so that I can leave the computer to take continuous images for an hour without intervention.

G4AQB Astro Wiki

Today I went to W.H. Smith to get a copy of this months Sky at Night Magazine. Guess what?
On page 75 under 'Super Sites' my Astro Wiki Site is listed with a screen capture of my site!
I'm really pleased, especially when I checked the traffic to the site. (Fame at last!) I wonder if Patrick Moore or Chris Lintott has looked at my sites? Click HERE for my Astro Wiki.
OK...what is a WIKI?
Well, you can add and edit pages on a WIKI (WIKIPEDIA) Quite a powerful medium for adding and building up information on a particular subject although there are a lot of sceptics as I found out when I posted on SPA!
I did know earlier when Sarah Reed from S@N sent me an e mail but I wasn't sure which month of the magazine it would be in.

M52 Scorpion Cluster and M103

M103 (top) and M52 (lower)

Here are a couple more images taken on 7th August. Again, widefield views with the Canon 350D and ST80.

There is a nice piece of software called DSLR Shutter which allows the camera to take multiple exposures of any length. Problem is...it appears to work from an RS232 port which my laptop has not got. I'm trying to find a way of using a USB port, but if i'm also controlling the scope and i'm not sure if another USB - RS232 converter will work.

Well, Summer continues to be anything but! Now we have winds from the North, clouds and cool...and I mean COOL. Last weekend it rained non-stop...and i'm getting a bit fed up!

Bank Holiday Weekend coming up, you know what Bank Holiday weather is like!

I wonder if for once it could be nice?

Quite a crop!

Above is the Coathanger Cluster, M15 Pegasus Cluster and my best image yet of the huge M31 Andromeda Galaxy with M110 and M32 along with it.
These images taken on the 7th August 2007 with my Canon 350D and ST80 Telescope. I think I could have carried on imaging some of the less known objects as the telescope was controlled by my laptop with the 'Starry Night' software. All I had to do was point and click and the telescope and camera would do the rest.
Since that night things have gone downhill weather wise. For the last few nights I have waited to be able to image the ISS with the Space Shuttle 'Endeavour' attached to it, but at the the time of the pass nothing but clouds and rain!

A grand night out!

The Great Hercules Cluster M13, Dumbell Nebula M27 and Owl Cluster NGC 475.

Last week on August 7th the night was perfect! Warm, still and perfectly clear...the best for months! I set up my Skywatcher ST80 with the SLT mount and Canon 350D camera at prime focus. Tracking was perfect and the laptop was used to control the slew and position of the mount. Camera was controlled and monitored by the laptop so that I could get perfect focus.
The wide field images that I captured blew by cotton socks off!
The scope slew perfectly from one object to another, had to wait 5min or so before imaging to let the scope settle. Here are the objects that I managed to capture:
Coathanger Cluster, Great Hercules Cluster, M15 Cluster in Pegasus, M103, Owl Cluster NGC 457, M52 Scorpion, Andromeda Galaxy, Wide angle views of Cygnus.
A grand night out!

Star trails in Cygnus

Took this picture last week of NGC 7000, The North America Nebula (centre) I was trying to capture this in detail by using a long exposure with the Canon 350D and wide angle lense. The camera was attached to the Celestron SLT mount so that it could be tracked. You can see that the centre is spot on, but then other stars appear to be rotating around the centre. This is because the SLT mount is actually an Alt - Az device, which means that on very long exposures like this, the tracking stays on course but the rotation will be obvious.
Exposure time was about 6min. This is a problem with an SLT mount, you can only take images without the rotation up to about 1min.
This makes a lovely image of part of the Milky Way! The colours of the stars in the region are amazing!
I have sent this image to 'Sky at Night' Magazine...fingers crossed!

Phoenix Lander heads for Mars

At 5:26 EDT the Delta II Rocket carrying the Phoenix Mars Lander lifted off from its launch pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Base.
In less than 90 minutes the spacecraft had left Earth's orbit headed for the Red Planet. This marks the beginning of Phoenix's 10 month cruise to Mars.
Phoenix will land on the northern plains of Mars and will dig into the soil and water-ice looking for evidence of past habitability.

A quarter million names -- including those of all Planetary Society members -- and many of the greatest works of Martian literature, are headed off to Mars. Remember this is not a standard DVD -- its an archival quality silica glass mini-DVD designed to last for hundreds of years in Mars' hostile environment.
The mini-DVD hardware heritage goes back to a design for the cancelled 2001 Mars lander. A few years later, with the LEGO Company, we flew a similar DVD on the landers for both Mars Exploration Rovers. And, now, our DVD is flying on the very spacecraft base for which it was originally designed, as Phoenix is the rebirth of the 2001 Mars lander—risen from the ashes and improved.

I'm also on my way to Mars, along with my Dad and Melissa engraved on the DVD!

Links:

http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/main/index.html

http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects/messages/20070804.html

Jupiter and Moons

Jupiter and 6 Moons!

Jupiter is very low in the Southern sky at the moment, but very bright. It is actually between the bushes above my fence, which makes it difficult to image. This was taken about 10.30pm on the 1st August between the leaves of my bushes! If you look carefully (click image to enlarge) you can see Six of Jupiter's Moons. Look carefully for one very close just to the left of Jupiter itself.

Again, taken with the ST80 and Canon 350D attached. Single exposure of 20s @ iso 800.

Widefield M27

Another image captured the other night, M27 - Dumbell Nebula. (bottom right) better if you click the image to make it bigger.

This one is really hard to find, but with the SLT mount controlled by my laptop I was able to simply point and click on screen and the scope with the Canon 350D fitted slewed straight to the object. I discovered that it takes about 5 minutes or so for the mount to properly settle before capturing the images. A couple of weeks ago I bought a 'bulb' for the 350D (remote exposure switch) came from China and cost about £2! This has been great for long exposures of over 30s. I also used the Canon capture software to take single exposures and then check the focus, problem is that the images are saved to the desktop in .TIFF format, so a lot of messing about converting the files was needed as my version of PSP will not accept .TIFF files.

Anyhow..here is the final cropped image of M27, stacked 5 subs at 30s each, iso 1600, processed in Photoshop.

Summer at last!

The last few days have actually brought SUNSHINE and even some clear nights. After what is officially the wettest June and July on record we now move into August. I'm now looking forward to a great Indian Summer!

The last couple of nights I went out in the garden and managed to image NGC 7000, the North American Nebula in the constellation of Cygnus. I've always wanted to capture some good images of this, particularly in wide field. My first attempt was taken with the Canon EOS 350 and the Skywatcher ST80. 6 frames of 30 seconds stacked with Deep Space Stacker.

The images are amazing individually, Cygnus is in the Milky Way belt and the number of stars are breathtaking (even from my back garden!)

More to come soon!

Noyes Fludde

Did I mention Global Warming back in April?

It has rained now every day for the last six weeks, torrential rain, summer storms, drizzle, constant showers and cats and dogs!!

Forecast for the next week is the same! Will it ever stop?

The wettest June in 150 years and July looks the same....what has happened to Summer this year? Could it be Global Warming or did Noah get it right?

I'm still not convinced!

It can only get better...surely!!

My poor telescopes have lay dormant and apart from one night this week for about half an hour, there has not been a clear night in six weeks.

Update:

Worst Floods in History (since Noah!)

"Flood ravaged areas of England are being warned that more heavy rain is set to sweep across the country.
Hundreds of families are still unable to return to their homes as floods continue to affect parts of Yorkshire and the Midlands."

Following this floods in Worcestershire and Gloucestershire left towns and villages near to the River Avon and Severn underwater. Tewksbury, Gloucester, Evesham and even the M5!

Unbelievable!

Apollo 11

Well, eight days to go and our school is shutting down and moving to a new building.
A lot of memories here...
Last week we celebrated the opening of our school in 1960 with a 60's week so that children today could experience life in the 1960's. The picture above is a large display made by the kids and myself to celebrate Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking on the Moon during July 1969.
It was great listening to 60's music and re-living that day on the 20th July 1969.
I've been here at St. Andrew's now for 15 years, strange that my school closes on 20th July 2007 ... the same day that man walked on the moon and a date I will never forget!

Space Shuttle Landing

This is an amazing still picture of the touchdown of Atlantis at Edwards Air Force Base, California.

Space Shuttle Missions get very little coverage on the BBC or any other media for that matter unless of course it blows up!

NASA Television is a superb site for watching live and recorded pictures of the missions. I watched Atlantis STS-117 take off live and tonight watched the landing live. The mission is a bit special because I was able to 'see' in the sky the ISS and watch the launch live on it's journey to the ISS. It became very 'real' so I was able to follow the mission. I began to feel a little bit like the Apollo 11 days where you realise that technology is wonderful and children need to be aware of what is happening out there in space.

I watched Mission Control bring down this Space Craft from a speed of 17,000mph in half an hour to glide gracefully to a standstill in a desert in California and it's not on a PSP2!

Here are some statistics: 22/6/07

Official Landing Times Main gear touchdown:20:49:38 p.m. BST

Nose gear touchdown:20:49:49 p.m.

EDT Wheels stop: 20:50:48 p.m.

EDT Total miles: 5.8 million

New look ISS

ISS trail from my back garden at the time of the Space Shuttle launch.

Yesterday the Space Shuttle Atlantis undocked from the international space station in preparation for return to Earth. The photos of the ISS taken from the Space Shuttle are stunning! The ISS is now bigger than ever and will no doubt reflect more light to the Earth as it passes over my back garden. Weather is not good at the moment...and getting worse!

I'm looking forward to seeing the ISS pass overhead again with it's new look. Let's hope I can take a good image of it.

The other night I downloaded a satellite tracking programme that will find and track the ISS with a telescope. I'm hoping that my Celestron SLT is supported by this programme, so I want to test it next time we have clear skies and the ISS in view.

Later today the Space Shuttle Atlantis returns to Earth.

Close up ISS

Close up image of the ISS taken during the second pass on Friday Night. I have tried to bring out some detail, and if you look carefully you can tell that it has a vague 'space station' shape. I have just seen some incredible images if the ISS docked with the Space Shuttle taken last night by others with telescopes.

(How can you track the ISS with a telescope and image it at the same time? It moves pretty fast!!)

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1109/539702533_f326cfee72.jpg

http://www.shannonsideastronomy.com/graphics/near/ISSAtlantis.gif

http://www.12dstring.me.uk/images/issatlantis.gif

The ISS Trail

The Space Shuttle Atlantis 45 minutes after taking the picture below.
Click the image above it's brill!


The first attempt at imaging the International Space Station about 90 minutes earlier hand-held was not successful, so I tried again on the second pass. This time I mounted my Canon 350D onto a tripod and waited for the ISS to appear. The image above was taken with a 20 second exposure set to wide field. This was about 45 minutes before the launch of the Space Shuttle Atlantis with a mission to dock with the ISS and build - on to the station.

I watched the launch live from NASA TV and this was amazing! The image above is from the launch.

To think that I have just taken images of the ISS over my own back garden then watched the Space Shuttle live heading for the ISS gives me a wonderful feeling!

International Space Station Pass

For the first time I have just watched the ISS from my garden! An amazing sight...it is 10.25 and still light, but the ISS is very bright and is easily seen. I took some photos with my 350D, but I couldn't hold the camera still enough, all I can see are random trails from the ISS.
What is even more amazing is that in 2 hours time the Space Shuttle Atlantis is about to launch from Cape Canaveral to dock with the ISS and add on new parts. I really wish I could take a decent image of the station...even better with the Space Shuttle attached!
The next pass is at 23.56pm travelling West to East. I will try again to capture some images...fingers crossed!