Archive for the 'Observing Reports' Category

Observing Report 14-15th November 2013 (doing a runner)

Posted by on November 19th 2013 in Astrostuff, Observing Reports
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Like I said, there was a run of clear frosty nights. I managed to blag a pass to spend another one of them in the shed. No visual observing this time, I fancied a shot at imaging an intriguing bunch of nebulae - NGC 1973/5/7. I could have done better with more subs, so I might well grab some more and process the thing again some time, but for now here's the result:

NGC 1973/5/7, 15th November 2013.
Subs: 25 light @ 300s, 50 darks or bias frames, ISO800.
1000D on the 6" R-C, guided with PHD.

This trio of objects isn't called the "Running Man Nebula" without good reason!

Observing Report 12-13th November 2013 (Comet Lovejoy (C/2013 R1))

Posted by on November 17th 2013 in Astrostuff, Observing Reports
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It's been a long time since I had a decent observing session - most nights that I've been up in the obsy recently have start well but clouded over before any imaging could begin. Not so last week, though, when there was a run of clear frosty nights, perfect for a bit of comet-chasing.

It's shaping up to be a good season for comets - there are now four of them rising in the East before dawn, promising to put on a decent show in the coming months. After a bit of visual comet-spotting I had a pop at imaging Comet Lovejoy (C/2013 R1), here are a couple of versions of a half-hour exposure guided on the comet:

Comet Lovejoy (C/2013 R1), 13th November 2013.
Subs: 1 light @ 1800s, no darks or bias frames, ISO800.
1000D on the 6" R-C, guided with PHD.

Comet Lovejoy (C/2013 R1), 13th November 2013.
Subs: 1 light @ 1800s, no darks or bias frames, ISO800. Levels tweaked to show the tails.
1000D on the 6" R-C, guided with PHD.

There are some other pics still to process so I might post the results sometime soon if I think they're worth showing.

I'm hoping to bag some pics of the other three comets sometime during the next few evenings if the weather decides to play along. Suffice to say that I'm not holding my breath!

(Late) Observing Report 26th-27th August 2013 (Another Moon Mosaic)

Posted by on September 15th 2013 in Astrostuff, Observing Reports, Pics
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It was going to be a night for software-testing, there having been a new release of APT that needed checking out. The skies were clear but the heat of the previous day was still making its escape from the planet via the air, which meant that the seeing was marginal for any sort of imaging, therefore I wasn't intending to take any images.

And then I remembered the medium-bandwidth Hydrogen-alpha (H-a) filter that I'd bought on the cheap. In theory it would cut out the worst of the shimmer. It had to be tried.

It worked, and it worked better than I would have expected. I grabbed 22 .avi files of the Moon, and after a bit of stacking jiggery-pokery I stuck the resultant .bmps into PS's photomerge. That spat out a reasonably-good mosaic image which I processed with RegiStax, and the following image was the result. I'm reasonably happy with it, but there's room for improvement next time out:

Moon (27/08/2013 @ 02:00 approx). 22 panes stitched with PS CS3.
Each pane is 200/2000 stacked frames. DMK mono CCD camera with H-a filter on the GSRC6M.

(Late) Observing Report 12th-13th August 2013 (Perseid meteors)

Posted by on September 14th 2013 in Astrostuff, Observing Reports, Pics
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With one thing or another taking precedence, the processing of these was unavoidably delayed.

Perseid meteors - taster pic below - click it to see a few more.

Perseid meteor.

Observing Report 5th July 2013 (A big group of sunspots)

Posted by on July 6th 2013 in Astrostuff, Observing Reports, Pics
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Yesterday saw an improvement in the weather. I managed to get out for an hour to nab this sunspot group:

Active Regions 1785 and 1787 (05/07/2013).
DMK mono camera on C80ED-R, Baader Solar Film filter.

What SOHO (the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) saw.

Close-up of Active Regions 1785 and 1787 (05/07/2013).
DMK mono camera with 2.25x Barlow on C80ED-R, Baader Solar Film filter.

Observing Report 26th-27th May 2013 (The Great Eye)

Posted by on June 4th 2013 in Astrostuff, Observing Reports, Pics
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It had been a while since I'd pointed the scope at the Moon.

These pics show my favourite phase - 2-3 days past full - when the terminator runs down the eastern limb and highlights a string of craters and maria.

Here's Mare Crisium - the Sea of Crises - looking like a huge lidless eye staring into the void:

 

Mare Crisium (27/05/2013).
DMK mono camera @ prime-focus on the 6" R-C.

 

And here's a poor effort at a clickable mosaic of the whole shebang:

 

Moon (27/05/2013).
28 panes stitched with iMerge. Each pane is 500/2000 stacked frames.
DMK mono CCD camera @ prime-focus on the GSRC6M.
The seeing was bad so the detail isn't as good as usual.
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