Archive for the 'Astrostuff' Category

Ringing the changes

Posted by on January 20th 2009 in Astrostuff
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It's almost that time of year when Saturn climbs to an observable height above the south-eastern skyline. In preparation for the ensuing observing and imaging sessions, I've been getting in some image-processing practice, using more-involved techniques on some of the .avi data acquired last year. I've taken the same data used to make the image posted on 4th April 2008 and pushed/pulled it through a different set of processing routines, ending up with this, which I reckon is a significant improvement:

 

 

In theory I should be able to capture higher-quality data this year, due to improvements to almost all of the various bits of kit used in the data-acquisition stage, so I expect to be able to produce even better pics... weather permitting.

Pier pressure

Posted by on December 3rd 2008 in Astrostuff, Making stuff

Monday evening was spent at the pub(s) with Nick, putting the world to rights and pretending to be professional bar-billiards players. Among the many topics of conversation, we returned to a couple of old favourites - telescopes and the night sky. We had discussed telescope piers before and had done a bit of research, so we decided that it was time to make our first prototype.

The next morning, with a dog-eared sketch in my hand and a dog-eared pair of steelies on my feet, I went to see the Nick at his business premises - it was time to play with the 5mm steel. Four hours later, after 2 hours of work and several brews, we stood back to admire our handiwork. It's rough-and-ready at the moment, we're not going to get it galved and painted until we're sure that it's up to the job, so after I've concreted it into the garden I've got to do some flexure, resonance and vibration-damping tests on it. This could take some time, so don't expect regular reports, but when we do get it right we'll let you know.

 

 

 

 

Now, where did I put that spade?

 

Andromeda reworked #3

Posted by on October 13th 2008 in Astrostuff, Observing Reports, Pics
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I went back to the stacked output from original set of frames and then applied a load of Photoshop Actions from the Astronomy Tools package available from Noel Carboni. It's amazing what detail can be strained out of what seems to be a dull picture. I've probably overcooked it, so this'll be the final edit unless I find more tools to play with:

 

M31/NGC 224 Andromeda Galaxy, reworked with Noel's Actions

Scope focuser upgraded

Posted by on September 10th 2008 in Astrostuff, Shiny new kit
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I'd been considering upgrading the scope's basic rack & pinion focuser for some time. After various bouts of tinkering, I'd managed to reduce the "Synta Slop" image-shift in the original focuser as far as I could without major surgery, and was fairly happy that it was the best that I was going to get, the other option being to shell out £100+ on an upgrade that I couldn't justify.

Then I chanced upon a bargain Crayford-style focuser at a keen price from Astronomica. After a few emails to check that the thing would fit with the minimum of hassle, I took the plunge and ordered one.

And guess what? It's a little gem. OK, it's unbranded, but I'm not one for paying for a label. Silky-smooth action with no discernible image-shift, plenty of travel, enough friction to lift the D50, and the Skywatcher Auto-Focuser fits it as well. The only tin-butchery required was the elongation of two of the mounting-holes in the scope OTA, but it was easy with the right kit.

 

 

I'll give it a thorough workout next time we get a clear night. Don't hold your breath, though - last night was the first (partially) clear one since we got back from Denmark, and the forecast says that it'll get worse before it gets better.

Playing catch-up

Posted by on July 30th 2008 in Astrostuff, Bloggers' Meet, Blogroll, Car stuff, In the News, Plugins, Shiny new kit, Site update, Thanks
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The blog's now well out-of-date, so it's time to do a bit of catching up. Luckily for you lot, I'm not a stats-whore, so I'll keep things brief and cram everything into one or two posts so that there's not a pile of individual entries to wade through. Now, where to begin...?

  • After a weekend-long posting-restriction imposed by the SGL forum admin, on Monday July 14th I was banned. And yes, the ban is justified. After some unjustified comments made by some of the admin, I reacted, broke the rules and got what I deserved. My crime was to react by removing the content from some of my posts. Just mine. No posts by other members were edited by me. The official version is different, and sounds much more sinister - according to the ban screen, I am banned for "attempting to corrupt the SGL database", which is a bit like saying that I've attempted to eradicate all life from the planet just because I swatted an annoying fly in our kitchen. Luckily, there's no sign that I'll be extradited to spend the rest of my days confined to the Guantanamo Bay facility. Anyway, I deserved the ban, and I don't much care that it'll never be lifted, but at least I'll no longer be hassled by some admins who think themselves beyond reproach and who think that they never have to apologise for anything, even when they have been proved wrong. It's sad that they get the good admins (who are in the majority) a bad press.
  • Talking of things astronomical, I had a bit of a panic a while back when one of the scope mount's tracking-motors packed in. After an online chat with the retailer, arrangements were made for the defective items to be investigated and replaced. Everything's now fixed and working fine, thanks to the great customer service provided by Adam at Rother Valley Optics (retailer) and by Optical Vision Ltd. (importer).
  • There was a clear night here a week or so ago, so I set up the scope to test out the replacement motors and to let the kids have a good look at Jupiter. They were suitably impressed with the view, seeing clearly-defined cloud-bands on the planet and seeing all four of the largest moons (Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto - the Galilean satellites, after Galileo Galilei who discovered them in 1610). After sending the kids to bed, I returned to the scope and had a reasonable visual observing session, finding M8, NGC 6530, M20, M22, Cr 399, NGC 6822 and a few others. The ISS passed over twice during the session, and there were a few meteors around. I didn't set up for imaging, so there are no pics. Since then, it's been cloudy almost every night.
  • Regarding other outdoors activities, there's precious little to report. I missed out on the Outdoors Bloggers' Dartmoor Meet because it was the weekend of my birthday and I didn't feel that it would have been right to bugger off for the weekend. Suffice to say that I got loads of nice pressies. :mrgreen:
  • I managed to fit in a drinking session with my friend Dave, who's a casualty of the recent round of redundancies at Thwaites Dumpers. He's taking it well, but there are a few folk I know from there who've been hit hard by the job cuts. I hope that they all get sorted out soon.
  • Gear-wise, I've been quite reserved about splashing the cash. I supplemented the money that I received as birthday presents in order to buy a SkyWatcher Auto Focuser from Steve at FLO, so that I don't have to faff about twiddling the knob by hand (go on, you make the puns). Even though it's not really auto (it's a motor with a control-box on a curly lead), it's a great bit of kit. Fed up with buying numerous adapters for allowing all sorts of electrical gadgets to be powered or charged in the car, we got a power-inverter so that we can just use the standard mains chargers/transformers instead. I should have bought one of these years ago - I must have spent a small fortune on car-adapters in the last few years. We had a day shopping at Go Outdoors and I didn't get any outdoors gear for myself - that must be some sort of record! Mind you, we spent a small fortune kitting out the other three for our summer holiday.
  • Blog-wise, there have been a few changes here. A few more plugins have been added, if you're interested they're listed at https://beardedgit.com/?page_id=481. The blogrolls have been updated - quite a few additions, some moves and a few deletions - if you spot any cock-ups, please feel free to let me know. I've a few more changes in the pipe-line, but I'll tell you about them another time.

Well, that's all for now. There's more, but it'll have to wait for later.

Observing Report 07-08 May 2008 (Flares are back in fashion)

Posted by on May 12th 2008 in Astrostuff, Observing Reports, Pics

After a neat bit of negotiation, I managed to blag an evening of observation away from home at the location discovered here.

The main purpose of the session was to use the webcam to grab a load of .avi data of Saturn before it gets too late in the year. OK, the seeing wasn't too good after such a warm day, but I managed to reel off over 30 minutes of data before the target sank too low into the surrounding orange glow. I'm still trying to find time to process the stuff, it takes a while to deal with over 27,000 frames of varying quality, and I'm part-way through two major tasks at the moment (on dry days I'm levelling the ground and laying turf to extend the lawn, on wet days I'm installing a new bathroom suite). When I've got something reasonable out of the Saturn data, I'll let you know.

Anyway, while the scope and webcam were chugging away, I had the D50 set up on a separate tripod taking a few long-exposure widefields. One of them was a 5-minute shot trying to get some pictures of circumpolar star-trails, it looks like I've managed to capture an Iridium flare on there too. I took a few pics of some of the more obvious constellations too, before it was time to pack away.

 

Circumpolar star-trails with Iridium flare

 

Leo with Saturn

 

Ursa Major (The Plough), showing Mizar as a double-star

 

Cassiopeia rising above the glow of light-pollution
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