Archive for the 'Pics' Category

Observing Report 5th-6th July 2010 (A breakdown on the M15)

Posted by on July 7th 2010 in Astrostuff, Observing Reports, Pics
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I got out to my obsy again last night, hoping to get some decent views during the prolonged gaps between regular bands of cloud. Surprisingly, the seeing was quite good considering the day had been hot and the night was still warm. I managed to get some dSLR pics of some Messier objects before the link between my focuser and its motor broke. The breakage meant that I didn't get any dark or flat frames as I was too busy trying (in vain) to cobble together a quick and temporary fix. Nevertheless, I've managed to process out most of the usual spoilers and end up with a reasonable image of M15 (aka NGC 7078), a globular cluster in the constellation Pegasus:

M15 (aka NGC 7078), a globular cluster in the constellation Pegasus.
Subs: 30 light @ 60s, no darks, no flats, ISO200.
D50 and MPCC on the C8N, guided with PHD.

 As previous but with added spikes


The rest of the pics weren't any use so I've chucked them. Besides, I've no time to faff with them anyway - tomorrow I have a focuser to fix.

The longest day at Croft Hill

Posted by on June 25th 2010 in Celebrations, Great Escapes, Pics
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To mark the longest day and the nth anniversary of our engagement we spent a few hours at the Croft Hill SSSI.

It's an odd place - the trig-column on the top of the hill is only 128m above sea level, the surrounding land is undeniably flat, and literally within a stone's throw of the top is Croft Quarry, claimed to be the largest man-made hole in Europe. Have a click on this pic and you might see what I mean:

 

Panorama from the top of Croft Hill

 

Just in case you didn't get a feel for the scale of the place from that, here are two more pics that should clarify the matter:

 

The hill


The hole

 

Impressive, eh?

Of course, it's not all about humps and hollows. There's plenty of flora and fauna to see, and a few other odd things too. Photographer and fellow blogger Colin Griffiths visits regularly and he takes some cracking pics of the place.

32 pics, click any of the above to view the lot.

Observing Report 24th-25th June 2010 (Tidy obsy, scruffy Jupiter)

Posted by on June 25th 2010 in Astrostuff, Observing Reports, Pics
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I managed to get out to the obsy last night, mainly to get the place tidied up and to oust the spiders that had invaded during the spring. The skies weren't really good enough for any deep-sky observing, as there was a persistent high-level moonlit haze that was ruining the contrast and which would have washed-out any images taken with the D50. Nevertheless it was a calm warm night so I stayed up to see Jupiter rise above the eastern horizon into a brightening blue dawn sky.

Not being one to pass up an opportunity, I decided to have a crack at imaging it with the mono DMK camera and some RGB filters even though the seeing wasn't really good enough.

Anyway, the resulting image from the first set of data is below:

 

 

 

 

I've got more data to process, some of which has Europa in the frame as well as Jupiter and Io. If the processing works out OK I'll let you know.

Observing Report 17th June 2010 (Daylight Moon bits)

Posted by on June 22nd 2010 in Astrostuff, Observing Reports, Pics
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Observing the early phases of the Moon from my obsy is a bit of a lottery - due to the restricted western view the only way to get the scope pointing at the thin waxing crescent is when the Moon's high in the sky. At this time of the year, that means observing during the daylight a few hours before sunset, which in turn means that the seeing is always going to be a limiting factor.

Never let it be said that I'm one to shy away from a challenge - here are some images gleaned from webcam data grabbed at about 20:00...

(mouseover the pics for the annotated versions):

Neander (30 miles dia.), Rheita E (40 x 19 miles), Furnerius (76 miles dia.),
Rheita (42 miles dia.), Fraunhofer (35 miles dia.), Metius (53 miles dia.),
Brenner A (19 miles dia.), Young D (27 miles dia.), Fabricius (47 miles dia.),
Vallis Rheita (303 x 18 miles)

 Pitiscus (50 miles dia.), Vlacq (54 miles dia.), Hommel (76 miles dia.),
Rosenberger (58 miles dia.), Nearch (46 miles dia.)

Daniell (18 x 14 miles), Rima G Bond (91 x 2 miles), G Bond (19 miles dia.),
Luther (6 miles dia.), Posidonius (58 miles dia.), Chacornac (31 miles dia.)

Endymion (76 miles dia.), Keldysh (20 miles dia.), Hercules (42 miles dia.),
Atlas (53 miles dia.)

Piccolomini (53 miles dia.), Neander (30 miles dia.), Rothman (25 miles dia.),
Rheita (42 miles dia.), Stiborius (27 miles dia.)

Messala (75 miles dia.), Berosus (45 miles dia.), Bernoulli (29 miles dia.),
Geminus (52 miles dia.), Burckhardt (35 miles dia.), Cleomedes (76 miles dia.)

Madler (17 miles dia.), Theophilus (61 miles dia.), Cyrillus (59 miles dia.),
Beaumont (32 miles dia.), Catharina (61 miles dia.)

 

Legs

Posted by on June 7th 2010 in In the garden, Pics

3 x 2

2 x 2

4 (Bob, just resting)

2 x 2

n x 8

Observing Report 2nd-3rd June 2010 Part 3a (M27 reprocessed)

Posted by on June 5th 2010 in Astrostuff, Observing Reports, Pics
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Had another go at processing the M27 data, managed to drag out some more detail:

M27 (NGC6853) reprocessed.
Subs: 22 light @ 120s, 22 dark @ 120s and 20 flat @ 2s, all ISO200.
D50 and MPCC on the C8N, guided with PHD.

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