BG! » Pics

Observing Report 7th-8th February 2011 (More Messiers)

Posted by BG! on February 28th 2011 in Astrostuff, Observing Reports, Pics

Just this one and then I'm up to date...

It was a really cold night but at least it was clear - there haven't been many decent nights here lately so it was a case of "use it or lose it". The main purpose was to get in an intensive imaging session with the baby R-C scope, taking light, dark and flat frames for objects at various image scales.

Target-wise, I had a bash at a couple Messier Objects - M100 and M101. Neither of these filled the D50's sensor, and they're both quite dim objects, so more and longer exposures and a lot of post-processing ops were going to be needed to get decent-sized crops from the data. As ever, it didn't work out as intended - all of the flats were rubbish due to a problem with the lightbox, and a fair few lights had to be scrapped due to issues with guiding.

Anyway, after much jiggery-pokery, here are the results:

M100 (aka NGC 4321), a face-on spiral galaxy in the constellation Coma Berenices.
NGC 4327, 4328, 4323, 4322 & IC 783 are also just about visible as faint fuzzy bits.
Subs: 10 light @ 300s, darks, ISO200.
D50 on the 6" R-C, guided with PHD.

M101 (aka The Pinwheel Galaxy, NGC 5457), a face-on spiral galaxy in the constellation Ursa Major.
Subs: 20 light @ 300s, darks, ISO200.
D50 on the 6" R-C, guided with PHD.

Next time I'll get it right and hopefully the results will be much better.

Comments (2) Link TrackBack

The Great Unwashed

Posted by BG! on February 25th 2011 in Camera kit, Great Escapes, Pics

Note to self: next time you're out with the camera, remember to clean the lens before taking 150+ pics.

😥

Expect a report on yesterday's outing sometime after I've worn out Photoshop's clone tool. Don't hold your breath - I may be some time.

Comments (2) Link TrackBack

Observing Report 8th-9th January 2011 (Venus & Saturn)

Posted by BG! on January 15th 2011 in Astrostuff, Observing Reports, Pics

Tags: Saturn, Venus

Nearly caught up!

It wasn't the clearest of nights, but it was the first half-decent chance for over a month so I took it.

The first half of the session was spent setting up the scope and mount and then getting good polar-alignment. It's always a good idea to do proper checks after either maintenance or extremes of weather - it's surprising how much the ground heaves when it's gone through long freeze/thaw cycles, and it does affect the position of the mount's pier. Setting-up also included re-registering the reference stars so that the thing can work out where it's pointing (and can then work out where to find other stuff)... a time-consuming job if done to a fair degree of accuracy.

The second half was given over to visual observation and planetary imaging. While waiting for Saturn to rise to an acceptable declination, I got the camera set up and had a few practice-sessions focusing on double-stars and then I sat back watching for meteors. When Saturn was in sight I found that I'd picked a night when the huge "Dragon Storm" was visible, so I grabbed some footage of it for processing later. After that I went over to visual for an hour or so while waiting for the next target, Venus, to gain some height in the pre-dawn sky. Eventually the bright crescent of Venus climbed far enough to be nabbed by the CCD. After that I should have packed away but I couldn't resist the temptation to wait and see if I'd be able to image Mercury too. I could see it through the binoculars, peeking through the branches of a tree, but as I waited for it to clear the obstruction the sky became too bright to catch the planet on camera. Better luck next time, maybe?

Anyway, here are the results: