Jan-Feb-2009

Highlights of the latest outings. Lots of images from the driveway too!

There are scary Gothic Street Lights, but fried egg sandwiches are never far away!

Hyper Jump Section Below

25th March, Davis Bay Seafront

20th February, West Sechelt

18th February, West Sechelt - Horsehead Nebula

M81 and M82 a pair of galaxies in Ursa Major

Feb 15th, 2009 - West Sechelt - Venus - Orion

January 18, 2009, West Sechelt - Scoping - Backyard

HEQ5 SHENANIGANS

June 2009

A variety of images from recent outings

The Celestron C8 XLT's Debut on the driveway

June 2009

Battling the street light glare to photograph

Saturn

Capella being occulted by Mt. Elphinstone - focus on Capella

Capella being occulted by Mt. Elphinstone - fous on

Mt. Elphinstone

I hadn't unpacked my gear yet when The ISS

came over ... I dove (yes dove) into the back

of the car - found the camera, set it for 10 sec and propped it on the roof of the car

M13 from the backyard

May 2009

M13 in Herculese

Shirley Macey Park - March 2009

Bill's Astro-Cafe

2009

25th March, Davis Bay Seafront

Dan, James, Debra, Betty, Bruce, Grace and Linda all met under a very clear sky at Davis Bay after 8.00pm

Despite the annoying street lights, the sky conditions were good, and we viewed many star clusters,

galaxies and saturn.

Observing Equipment:

Celestron Nextstar SCT

Antares 250mm Dob

Celestron Omni XLT 150 Newtonian

Skyquest 200mm Dob

Antares 127mm Refractor

Celestron Skymaster 20X80 Binos

20th February, West Sechelt

The last clear night before weeks of clouds - Yikes, got to get out and see the Comet!

I went out later tonight around 10.45 and found the comet N.E. of Spica. The orange light pollution

being thrown up by Sechelt made Virgo hard to identify - even Spica was not obvious.

The HEQ5-PRO blew out again, this time during alignment.

I reverted to the Celestron Omni 150 with which it took about 10 seconds

to find the comet.

Comet Lulin around 20 past midnight

A raw frame from The Canon 300D

The comet was easily found in

15x70 Binoculars

Comet Lulin with The Canon 300D

Celestron Omni 150 XLT

1 minute @ ISO 3200

18th February, West Sechelt.

Another attempt to capture a good image of the elusive Horsehead.

Since I don't have a guiding set up at present, I'm limited to 2 minute

exposures. The challenge is to find, frame and focus the target and capture

as many accurate short exposures as possible.

The HorseHead Nebula is just below Alnitak in Orion.

I took eight frames all exposed at ISO 3200 - 2 minutes

I used seven frames - the eighth one was jarred when

my glove - covering the viewfinder - fell off the camera

A Single Raw Frame From The Canon 300D

7 Frames With Darks Subtracted and Stacked By Hand in Photoshop

Stack of 7 Balanced And Unsharp Masked In Photoshop

Do You Think Canon Would Loan Me The Canon 5D Mark II With ISO 25,600?

The Horse Would Have No Place To Hide!

Conclusion:

The Horsehead is still a little darker than I'd like.

But having 7 images to stack smoothed out the image noticeably.

Compare it to the shorter exposures and lesser frame versions

here: horsing around

M81 and M82 a pair of galaxies in Ursa Major

After A Half Hour With The Horse, I Thought It Was Time

To Move On To Ursa Major For My Favourite Pair Of Galaxies

M81 and M82

A Single Raw Frame From The Canon 300D

2 Minutes @ ISO 3200

The Red Glow At The Right Side Of The Frame

Is Caused By Internal Heat Being Picked

Up By The Camera's Sensor

Two Frames Stacked

A Dark Frame Of The Same Duration Is Subtracted

To Remove Most Of The Red Camera Noise

Further HEQ5-PRO Shenanigans

After M81 and M82 I Wanted To Try Finding Ceres - Currently In Leo.

I Called Up SAO81681 A Nearby 6.4 Mag Star Near Ceres.

The HEQ5-PRO Slewed There, Beeped Then Began Slewing Again.

I Watched Wondering Where It Was Going Until It Got Horizontal.

I Gave It The Escape Key And It Halted Now With A Garbled Display.

I Couldn't Continue The Session As Resetting Had No Effect.

I Have Now Downloaded And Installed Orion's Sirius Firmware

Version 03.23 - Supposedly The Same Firmware - We'll See ...

Feb 15th, 2009 - West Sechelt - Venus - Orion

After a couple of 'middling' outings with too much sky glow and general murkiness, I was glad to see the sky looked

pristine in the afternoon. I noticed Venus very high in a still blue sky around 5.30pm, so I broke out the

Celestron 150mm Omni XLT for some daytime Venus viewing.

Later I went back out under the night sky from 8.00pm until Midnight with the Antares 200mm on the HEQ5-Pro.

Sky conditions were excellent with only light pollution to bother me. I was using the Canon 300D with the

upgraded firmware allowing ISO 3200 and mirror lockup.

After focusing on Sirius, I slewed to The Orion Nebula - M42 - and took a test image.

Focus looked good and so did tracking so I began touring my favourite objects to see what

kind of images I could capture under such good conditions.

Venus:

Canon 300D

Camera Adapter

Projection using 10mm E.P.

Celestron 150 Omni XLT

4 Frames Stacked

Venus:

Canon 300D

Camera Adapter

Projection using 10mm E.P.

Celestron 150 Omni XLT

4 Frames Stacked

Venus:

Canon 300D

Camera Adapter

Projection using 10mm E.P.

Celestron 150 Omni XLT

4 Frames Stacked

M42 - The Orion Nebula

Canon 300D - ISO 3200

I minute @ Prime

Antares 200mm

HEQ5-Pro

Antares First Image

Processed.

M42 - The Orion Nebula

Dark Subtracted

Balanced

The Horsehead Nebula was Nearby. I slewed to its location using the red dot finder and tried some images.

The First Image From

The Antares 200mm!

I minute @ Prime

ISO 3200

The Horsehead Nebula

in IC434

Canon 300D - ISO 3200

2 minutes @ Prime

Antares 200mm

Unguided

The Horsehead Nebula

Alnitak is the brightest star in the

field and is the lower left star

in Orion's Belt

M44 - The Pleiades Star Cluster

Canon 300D - ISO 3200

90 Sec @ Prime

M44 - The Pleiades Star Cluster

Canon 300D - ISO 3200

90 Sec @ Prime

M44 - The Pleiades Star Cluster

Canon 300D - ISO 3200

90 Sec @ Prime

Dark Subtracted

Balanced in PS

M44 - The Pleiades Star Cluster

Canon 300D - ISO 3200

90 Sec @ Prime

2 Stacked

1 pushed low

1 pushed high

I asked the scope what other

interesting objects I was

missing? M64 - The Black Eye Galaxy was the reply.

I Slewed and Imaged.

ISO 1600 - 2 minutes

M64 - The Black Eye Galaxy

ISO 3200 - 2 minutes

Canon 300D

It was a great clear night for scoping and imaging, but not everything went to plan. There was lots of light interference from streetlights and neighbours seemingly popping out the back door and putting the light on every 15 minutes. I also realised towards the end of the session that a distant street light was actually shining right into the scope tube. I need to get a due shield on the tube to help keep stray light out.

My first image was of M42 The Orion Nebula but when I slewed around to M81 and M82 with the camera attached to the scope, there was enough flex and change in attitude (on the scope's part you understand) that I lost crisp focus. Everything looked crisp on the camera but later I found my twin galaxy shots all just out of focus. Note to self: Need to refocus after slewing.

After some teething problems the HEQ5-Pro excelled itself by tracking consistently for 2 minutes with almost no trailing in any of the shots. Periodic Error according to the specs is around 15 arc seconds straight out of the box. That figure must have been accurate tonight. It did surpass the Celestron CG-4 on consistent accurate tracking (with a lot of weight on board). According to the spec's the 15 second error can be reduced to 7 seconds by using Periodic Error Correction. That's approaching the accuracy of very high end mounts. According to Meade 5 arc seconds is Observatory class.

January 18, 2009, West Sechelt - Scoping - Backyard

After several days of fog preventing us from enjoying the clear skies above, the fog bank retreated down

the hill just enough to break out the scopes for our first view of the night sky this year.

I was viewing a pair of galaxies in Ursa Major - M81/M82 - and I noticed a fuzzy object just

North of M81. I hadn't noticed this before so I took its position and drew the star field.

I checked Stellarium and found nothing at this position. So just before sending my discovery of Comet MacWilliam,

to Patrick Moore, I checked 'The Sky' and found NGC3077 at the mystery object's position!

O.k. Messier now I can sympathise :-) The mystery object appears at the bottom of the galaxy images.

Both Neil Sandy and I noticed this object independently and we both check next night to find no movement - darn!