More with the 350D

Here are some more pictures taken with the Canon EOS 350D. These images of orion were taken with 200mm zoom lens, manual settings and 10 second exposure. The camera was mounted on a small tripod.

I have now sent for an adaptor to fit the camera to a telescope and some more info about using the camera.

New Camera!

Venus at Sunset with the Canon EOS 350D

Guess what? I didn't need much persuading...the Canon EOS 350D is a superb DSLR Camera! So I took the plunge and bought myself a complete kit with 18 - 55mm lens and additional 55 - 200mm zoom lens, 1Gb CF memory card and bag.

Visit to Jessops on Monday gave me chance to find out more and handle the camera, they have a good deal at the moment where the Tamron AF55 - 200m zoom lens comes at half price with the camera, well worthwhile. So after sleeping on it, I returned on Tuesday and bought it!

My first photos trying out the camera are impressive!

On Thursday the skies cleared at sunset so I tried some wide field shots of Venus, Orion and the Moon. Some hand held and others with a small tripod, the results were astounding (to me at least!) I was able to take 10 second exposures of Orion and Pleaides in darkness with just the zoom lens. Wide field shots of star fields are brill!

I'm going to have some fun with this camera.... anyone want to buy my old Pentax MV SLR and a couple of films?

Digital Rebel!

The Canon EOS 350D 'Digital Rebel'

Decisions, decisions...

I keep looking at the Canon EOS 350D camera with a view to harnessing the latest technology and trying some imaging with one of these. Some of the best Astro-Images are with this camera or similar but they cost a lot!!

Can I justify buying one of these?
Will I be opening a Pandora's Box of new techniques in imaging?
Will it cost me in in add-ons and adaptors?

Super Saturn

Even more pleased with this one!!

This the same image as the last post, but I processed the image a different way. This time I processed and stacked 50 frames in Registax then used it as a reference to stack the main 1500 frames.

I've only just found out that this can be done...WoW...I will try this with some of my other images, especially the Mars images from last year.

Saturn

I'm really pleased with this image!

A crisp and frosty night, just right for having a go at Saturn.

Last night I attempted to fit my Skywatcher 130 tube to the SLT mount by changing the fittings. My biggest problem was getting the dovetail to tighten up in the SLT clamp, when I had finally managed this I tried to align the computerised mount with three stars. What a mess! Kept refusing to acknowledge the settings...it seems that the batteries are going. So not really a successful night!

Tonight, I re-mounted the 130 again and bought new batteries for the mount in an attempt to image Saturn. The alignment was a bit out, even though the computer locked onto the settings, but I was able to image Saturn with the SLT mount. Once the mount had locked, tracking was very good, even with the 2x Barlow. Tonight I went to Maplin to buy a mains PSU for the mount, but it not work??? (why??) I will investigate this further.

The image above is 2000 frames @ 10fps of AVI with the Toucam Pro II, processed in Registax 4. I think I should have tried this with the 3x Barlow, but it was freezing outside and I wanted to go in.

Venus with Mercury again!

Another super sunset! This time I took pictures with the Sony Camera (as before) but with a small tripod fitted. You can clearly see Venus and Mercury together.

Full Moon with Saturn

What a night! First seeing Venus and Mercury for the first time and then the Moon and Saturn in conjunction.
The sky is clear and the air is crisp, so I set up my ST80 and SLT mount in the garden. At first I tried to image M42, but the SLT would not recognise the alignment stars, tried 3 or 4 times but no lock! Why is this? I thought...could it be the time settigs? It was! The time setting for the SLT was way out, I don't know why...I reset...and away it went! By this time M42 had disappeared behind a tree, the Full Moon had appeared above the rooftops, so I decided to try to image the Full Moon and that 'star' that was nearby. The tracking on the SLT mount is great, while imaging with the Toucam Pro II the Moon never moved!

After imaging a few Moon avi's I tried to capture the Moon and 'star'... when I did I could clearly see Saturn and the Moon.

WoW!

The full Moon is very bright, so in my images of Saturn and the Moon, the Moon is over exposed. The picture above is made up of two images taken at the same time of the Moon and Saturn and merged together...COOL!!

Venus and Mercury

Today was lovely! Cold and sunny!

Sunset was a beautiful sight, the sky turning red and orange, there in it's glory is Venus, by far the brightest object in the sky. Too low to see in a telescope from the ground, but from the window upstairs a wonderful sight. I waited scanning the sky for a second object to appear, Mercury, I have never seen Mercury in my life so tonight I was hopeful!

Around 5.30pm out popped Mercury! Sightly lower and West of Venus, but clear and bright. I tried to image the wonderful sight of a red sky with Venus and Mercury together with my Sony DSC-P73, the image does not really do justice to what I saw, but it captured the moment!

After this I brought in the Celestron 60mm scope tube and balance it on the windowsill to look at Mercury and Venus closer.
I'm really pleased with what I saw, Mercury...for the very first time!

Clear night at last!

At last...the rain has cleared and left a clear and frosty night!
Orion was in it's glory tonight, so a chance to take some images of the Orion Nebula and maybe the Running Man Nebula.

Took a while to align the SLT because I kept pressing the wrong buttons on the handset in the dark, but no problem once the skyalign found it's alignment stars. This mount is brilliant, aligns not only into the eyepiece, but also on screen on the laptop with the webcam. Tracking is great and rotation when imaging is not a problem any more with Registax 4 with the multi-align function.
Managed to image the Running Man Nebula, but not enough detail to show the nebula itself, can see the star cluster clearly though.

The image above of the Orion Nebula is 15 frames stacked, 30s per frame, processed in Registax 4.

Storm Force Winds!

Yesterday brought the worst storms since the famous 'hurricane' in 1990. By lunchtime the winds had reached 90mph and causing an awful lot of damage. At school we brought the children inside at lunch time because it was so dangerous out on the playground. The Winter Hill Transmitter recorded wind speeds of 99mph!

Today the wind is still strong, far too strong to attempt taking a scope outside, but the forecast looks good...it's getting cold...crisp, starry nights? Thats what I want really want!

First attempt with the SLT mount

Image of the spiral galaxy NGC 2776 taken by the JMU Robotic Telescope. The telescope took this picture for me last month. Cool!!


Today the sun shone brightly!

The first day that it hasn't rained for weeks!

Tonight was clear, so I took out my Celestron SLT mount with the Skywatcher ST80 fitted to the mount. I thought alignment might be tricky, but it wasn't, I set up the mount at the back of the garden and did a three star alignment. I just chose three bright stars and away it went!
From my handset list I chose the Orion Nebula, pressed ENTER and there it was in the eyepiece! Tried a few others in the list to check the slew on the scope...it worked fine! Tracking perfect!

A nice piece of kit...i'm really pleased. I now want to link the SLT to my Laptop so that I can select targets from the computer and hopefully be able to image some of the objects listed.

Comet McNaught

A great event, if I can get chance to see it and even take images of it...The Comet McNaught!
This comet can now be seen low in the western sky at sunset along with the planet Venus. The comet is very bright and getting brighter! Trouble is...the weather here in Bolton, it has rained and rained, today gale force winds as well! With any luck there might be a chance over the next couple of days to see this great event...lets see!

Some great images here of Comet McNaught by Pete Laurence.

http://www.digitalsky.org.uk/comets/P1_McNaught/C2006-P1-McNaught_Jan10.html

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.