Archive for the 'Observing Reports' Category

Observing Report 26th-27th June 2011 Part 1 (A double and a cluster)

Posted by on June 29th 2011 in Astrostuff, Observing Reports, Pics
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A warm clear night after one of the hottest day of the year so far. Clarity was good although the seeing was only fair at best. Still not much full darkness but managed to get two targets before it got too light...

Albireo, the fifth brightest star in the constellation Cygnus.
Albireo appears to the naked eye to be a single star but through a telescope even low magnifications resolve it into a double star.
The brighter yellow star makes a striking colour contrast with its fainter blue companion.
Subs: 10 light @ 150s, darks and bias frames, ISO400.
1000D on the 6" R-C, guided with PHD.

M39 (aka NGC 7092), an open cluster in the constellation Cygnus.
Subs: 12 light @ 300s, darks and bias frames, ISO400.
1000D on the 6" R-C, guided with PHD.

Observing Report 7th-8th June 2011 (Yet another cluster)

Posted by on June 9th 2011 in Astrostuff, Observing Reports, Pics
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A session in adverse weather conditions. Most of the data was trashed by clouds and/or skyglow. Again, not enough hours of proper darkness for more than one target. Click the pic to see a larger version...

M71 (aka NGC 6838), a loosely-concentrated globular cluster in the constellation Sagitta.
Subs: 12 light @ 300s, darks and bias frames, ISO400.
1000D on the 6" R-C, guided with PHD.

Observing Report 18th-19th May 2011 (Another Cluster)

Posted by on May 25th 2011 in Astrostuff, Observing Reports, Pics
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Another session, another glob. Needed to use the 2x PowerMate to get a decent-sized image on the chip, so resolution has suffered a bit.

Not enough hours of proper darkness for much more than one target...

M56 (aka NGC 6779), a globular cluster in the constellation Lyra.
Subs: 13 light @ 300s, darks and bias frames, ISO400.
1000D on the 6" R-C with 2x PowerMate, guided with PHD.

Observing Report 3rd-4th May 2011 (A Cluster and a Ring)

Posted by on May 5th 2011 in Astrostuff, Observing Reports, Pics
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I'll spare you the usual details, suffice to say that it was a warmish night, nice and clear and with a light breeze so I was out with the baby R-C scope looking at more Messier Objects. It was a late start and a short session, as from 4 a.m. onwards it was too light to take pics.

As before, I'll let the results do the talking:

M10 (aka NGC 6254), a globular cluster in the constellation Ophiuchus.
Subs: 7 light @ 300s, darks and bias frames, ISO400.
1000D on the 6" R-C, guided with PHD.

 M57 (aka NGC 6720, The Ring Nebula), a planetary nebula in the constellation Lyra.
Subs: 16 light @ 300s, dark and bias frames, ISO400.
1000D on the 6" R-C with 2x PowerMate, guided with PHD.

 

M57 really needs a lot more data, I'll try to get more next time out.

Observing Report 8th-9th April 2011 Part 2 (Saturn and globs)

Posted by on April 15th 2011 in Astrostuff, Observing Reports, Pics
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Well, we waited a while for darkness to fall and for Saturn to become visible. I trained the scope on it only to find it hiding behind the topmost leaves of a bush. We waited a while longer and then found that it had gone behind a tree. More waiting ensued before it cleared all of the obstructions, and then the guests all got a view of it through the eyepiece. After they were all suitably impressed by the planet and by the few Saturnian moons that were visible, I swapped the eyepiece for the camera and we all watched it on the laptop for a while. As an added bonus those not glued to the screen got to see the ISS pass overhead.

Visit over and goodbyes said, I went back to pack away. Trouble was, the sky was incredibly clear and the seeing was much better than usual. It was too good an opportunity to miss...

Before long I'd got the 1000D set up on the 6" R-C and the DMK was back on the guide-scope. A fair few globular clusters were visible unaided so I took a few runs of images and did some visual observing over the next few hours. Intermittent high wispy clouds spoiled a lot of the data but I ended up with a few reasonable frames for stacking. At the end of the session I was fair knackered as I'd spent nearly 12 hours either behind the scope or in front of the lappy, but it was worth it.

M3 (aka NGC 5272), a globular cluster in the constellation Canes Venatici.
Subs: 11 light @ 300s, darks and bias frames, ISO400.
1000D on the 6" R-C with 2x PowerMate, guided with PHD.

M5 (aka NGC 5904), a globular cluster in the constellation Serpens.
Subs: 14 light @ 300s, darks and bias frames, ISO800.
1000D on the 6" R-C with 2x PowerMate, guided with PHD.

M92 (aka NGC 6341), a globular cluster in the constellation Hercules.
Subs: 11 light @ 300s, darks and bias frames, ISO400.
1000D on the 6" R-C with 2x PowerMate, guided with PHD.

Observing Report 8th-9th April 2011 Part 1 (Afternoon Moon)

Posted by on April 14th 2011 in Astrostuff, Observing Reports, Pics
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As I've said before, 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 western sky. This time around it was late in the afternoon... sunny... hot... not the best conditions for this sort of thing.

I'd invited some friends around to have a go with the scope so I'd got set up with an hour to spare. While waiting for them to arrive I grabbed some video data for another lunar mosaic. Processing was difficult but eventually a passable result was achieved:

 The Moon.
11-pane mosaic created with PSCS3.
Each pane 100/2000 frames stacked with K3CCDTools3.
DMK mono CCD camera on the 6" R-C, unguided.

 

When the guests arrived we did some visual observing and also did some lunar exploring using the DMK for looking and the laptop for display. A few interesting bits were recorded, here are the results:

(mouseover the pics for the annotated versions):

Rheita (42 miles dia.), Stiborius A (19 miles dia.), Metius (53 miles dia.),
Watt (40 miles dia.), Steinheil (41 miles dia.), Fabricius (47 miles dia.),
Vallis Rheita (303 x 18 miles)

 Romer (24 miles dia.), Chacornac (31 miles dia.), Newcomb (24 miles dia.),
Macrobius (39 miles dia.), Dorsa Aldovandi (73 miles long)

Isidorus (25 miles dia.), Capella (30 miles dia.), Gutenberg (45 miles dia.),
Gutenberg D (12 miles dia.), Goclenius (33 miles dia.), Magelhaens (25 miles dia.),
Magelhaens A (19 miles dia.), Bellot (10 miles dia.), Colombo (46 miles dia.),
Colombo A (25 miles dia.)

Endymion (76 miles dia.), Keldysh (20 miles dia.), Hercules (42 miles dia.),
Atlas (53 miles dia.), Atlas A (13 miles dia.), Burg (24 miles dia.),
De La Rue (82 miles dia.)

Piccolomini (53 miles dia.), Neander (30 miles dia.), Stiborius (27 miles dia.),
Rupes Altai (short section) (291 miles long)

Eventually the Moon dropped out of our field of view so we went in for a brew and waited a few hours for darkness to reveal some other targets.
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