AnnMarie's Blog

Finally got to view & picture this comet. Comet Lulin is a non-periodic comet which is currently passing close to Earth. Perigee was on Feb 24th 2009 as seen from Earth. Clouds have been a significant problem here in Snowdonia & it wasn’t until tonight that I could actually get a glimpse of this comet. With my astro imaging computer still out of action this one was down to old fashioned star maps & a visual search. Well worth while though, here’s an image that I took with the 5D MkII & 500mm lens:

   Click image for a larger view …

Without the computer I couldn’t do anything guided & really deep but I’m just pleased to have captured this image. Comet Lulin appears very green due to cyanogens & diatomic carbon that glow green in the light from our star, the sun.

Here’s the imaging details:

• Camera:  Canon 5D MkII
• Optics:  Canon 500mm f4 L
• Aperture:  f4
• ISO:  4000
• Filter: None
• Exposure 18.5mins  (13 subs)

Note that the apparent “2nd tail” that was viewed earlier in the Comet’s pass, is no longer visible.

Comet Lulin was only discovered in 2007 by Chinese astronomers. It will now start to head back away from us in to the cold dark depths of the outer solar system. There are however a good few weeks left during which the comet should put on a good show, so if you haven’t seen it yet, don’t give up hope. See the widefield image below for its current location.

   Click image for a larger view …

At the bottom of the image the bright object just above the tree line is Saturn, at the top right corner is Regulus in Leo. If you look carefully just above the rather obtrusive power lines & on the extreme right, you will see Comet Lulin. Over the next few days the comet will appear closer to Regulus & then go past it.

Good Luck with viewing it.

Well the bad news first, I’m currently out of the game with my deep sky astroimaging. At least I’m assuming that’s what a big flash followed by a nasty burning smell, both emanating from my astro control PC, is likely to mean! Oh well I have a huge amount of work to do anyway, so a month or two without pulling all nighters might be just as well.

That said, its only been 2 weeks and already I’ve found the need to go out and do some solar system imaging. The moon was particularly beautiful the other night, so …

   Click image to see a larger version from my astro gallery …

Image Details:

Tamsin came out to help but at –7C we started to get a bit chilled after an hour or so; the Chilli went down so well afterwards

Anyway it was nice to image the moon again, I haven’t done so in a while and this one being, a mosaic, might just find itself as a large poster on my wall.

Well the night of Boxing Day (26th Dec) proved to be lovely and clear; dark too with it being a new moon. The stars of Orion were twinkling beautifully in the south-eastern sky, so I just couldn’t resist going and grabbing a few hours of hydrogen alpha subs. I’d been waiting since last spring to redo the Ha exposures for Barnard’s Loop and having exposed them, I chose the best 25 of the 4 minute exposures, stacked them and then combined them with my previous RGB exposures.Here’s the a small version of the resulting image:

  Click image to view the larger version on my Astro Gallery.

Image Details:

For those who have not seen my previous posts on this object, here are some details:

Barnard’s Loop is a large nebulous shell of dust & ionised hydrogen gas; it is also known as Sh 2-276. The loop partially surrounds the central region of Orion, it is some 1,600 light years from Earth and has a diameter of some 200 to 300 light years. It is currently thought that one or several significant supernova events, about 2 million years ago, blasted this matter out from the core regions of Orion.
Within the loop several other distinct features can be seen including M42, M43, M78, the Horsehead & Flame Nebulae.

As regular readers of my blog will probably have realised, I have a particular fondness for the constellation of Orion. Earlier this year I spent some time creating a blog post about the constellation. However, the year rolled on and I ran out of clear skies to do further imaging. Well with autumn, Orion is back in the sky. So far I’ve had opportunity to re-image Orion’s Sword and the Horsehead Region with a new lens & with more tuned guiding. Here are the 2 new versions, hope you like them:

  … click on image for a larger view

Image Details:

• Object:   Horsehead & Flame Nebulae
• Camera:  Canon 300D (modified)
• Optics:   Canon 500mm f4 L IS
• Aperture: f4.0
• ISO: 800
• Filter: Astronomik UHC in camera
• Exposure:  1hr 35 mins (5min subs)

  … click on image for a larger view

Image Details:

• Object:   Orion’s Sword incl. Messiers 42 & 43 + the Running Man
• Camera:  Canon 40D
• Optics:   Canon 500mm f4 L IS
• Aperture: f4.5
• ISO: 1250
• Filter: None
• Exposure:  1hr 20 mins (5s, 30s, 2min and 4min subs)

With the co-operation of the weather I hope to complete further imaging within Orion, throughout the coming winter; so watch this space. You will now be able to view these images in my astrogallery and selected versions will be available to purchase as prints or posters from Posters Wales. Thanks for looking.

IC1396 is an open cluster with associated nebulosity, located in the constellation of Cepheus, some 2400 light years away. It is seen with bright Ha emissions & dark dust lanes, some of which are concealing young proto stars. Within the cluster there are 2 nebulae designated IC1396A & IC1396B. The A part is also called the Elephant Trunk nebula and can be seen upper right in the image below; part B is beyond the base of the ‘trunk’. These regions are areas of dust & gas where star birth is ongoing. My image below is of the central part of IC1396 …

   Click image for a larger view or look in my astrogallery

Image Details:

Canon 300D modified

Canon 500mm f4 L IS plus 1.4 extender giving 700mm @ f5.6

Astronomik UHC filter

46 x 3 minute sub exposures @ ISO1600 – Total Exposure 2hrs 18 mins

Celestron CG5 mount

Guiding: SXpress Lodestar & PhD Guiding

Processing: Iris, Photoshop, Lightroom

Conditions: variable due to mist & moving clouds. Full Moon.

The Elephant’s Trunk shape is caused by the action of a large ionising double star (SAO33626 seen beneath it in the picture above) and the  opposing winds from young stars within the trunk. The 2 actions are compressing interstellar gases into the rim of the nebula.

At the bottom left of the image, the ‘Garnet’ star Mu Cephei can just be seen. This is one of the largest stars that we have so far observed, having a radius almost 1500 times larger than that of our sun. The Garnet star (HIP 107259) has a variable magnitude of 4 to 5 and is 5260 light years from Earth. To put the size of this star in perspective, if replacing our sun, its outer edge would be somewhere around Saturn. It is doomed in time to explode as a substantial supernova.

If you have WorldWide Telescope, click here to view the whole of IC1396.

After what I think was 2 months of cloud, last night gave me a welcome view of the night sky. Conditions did not look as if they would last, so whilst setting up for a deep sky shot of IC1396 (post to follow) I took a quick snapshot of Jupiter & her Galilean moons. This is what Stellarium predicted that I should see:

   Click stellarium image for a bigger view…

And below is the quickie 15 second exposure that I took:

  Click image for a larger view …

Its always good when predictions are accurate

Needless to say tonight is back to gloomy cloud but at least I had a planetary view, saw several late meteors from the recent shower & took some deep sky exposures. Hopefully it won’t be 2 months before the next clear night.

When thinking about imaging galaxies it is easy to over look our own galaxy, the Milky Way. Most of the nebulae & star clusters that we image, are part of the Milky Way. Last night offered a brief respite in the summer clouds, which allowed me to take a quick widefield image of our galaxy. Naturally, being within one arm of the galaxy we cannot image the full beauty of its spiral structure; instead what we see is an awe inspiring myriad of stars, banded with dust and peppered by nebulae. This is a sight that all should stand and enjoy, a simple pair of binoculars or a spotting scope will help bring the billions of stars a little closer.

Here’s my image from last night, it is centred on Cygnus and shows, amongst others; the N. American, Pelican & Elephant Trunk nebulae:

Image Details: Canon 300D modified Canon 15mm fisheye ISO800 f3.2 12×1.5mins exposure UHC Filter CG5 mount unguided   click image for a larger view …

The Milky Way is thought to be a barred spiral galaxy (SBbc), containing over 200 billion stars of which our sun is a fairly average individual. The galaxy is 100,000 light years in diameter (1 light year equals 5,878,499,812,499 miles!). To put this in perspective the distance across our solar system from Earth to Pluto is about 0.08 light years; the furthest travelled man made probes are the Voyager spacecraft, they are currently crossing the boundaries between our solar system & interstellar space. When observing from Earth our galactic centre is in the direction of Sagittarius; a clear dark rural sky is best for viewing our galaxy. The galaxy is over 10 billion years old and most likely contains a super massive black hole at its centre. Our solar system is located on the inner edge of the Orion arm of our galaxy.

To view a map of the Milky Way & our position click here.

If you have Worldwide Telescope, click here for a view similar to part of my image.

As part of my summer project (an exploration of Cygnus), I am aiming to create a detailed mosaic of the Cygnus Loop (Veil Nebula). The clouds have not been helpful so far and the forecast for the next few weeks is no better However I have had chance to take a test widefield image of the loop region.

This image is intended as the rough outline for my mosaic, the lid of the jigsaw puzzle box, if you like. It consists of 5 x 5 minute sub exposures at ISO 800 & f3.2; so not much integration time but hopefully deep enough.

   Click image for a larger view …

Anyway, with the lack of available imaging time, I thought I’d share the above image with you. Hopefully something is better than nothing!

Image Data:

The whole nebulous area is a remnant of an ancient Supernova that took place some 15 to 20 thousand years ago. It is located only about 2,600 light years away from Earth.

It is catalogued as several separate entries including NGC6960 (the Witch’s Broom or Western Veil) to the right & NGC6992 (the Eastern Veil) to the left. Also included are NGC6995 (below 6992), NGC6974 & 6979 (top middle-left) and Fleming’s Triangular Wisp (top middle-right).

To view this region in Worldwide Telescope follow this link.

Watch this space over the coming months for a more detailed image (oh & please wish me clear skies!).

The North American Nebula (NGC7000) & the neighbouring Pelican Nebula (IC5070) are just 2 of the beautiful cosmic sights to be seen in the constellation of Cygnus, "The Swan". Having undertaken a brief tour of Cygnus last summer, I am encouraged to do so in more depth this year – providing time & weather cooperate for me! To start it off I wanted some Hydrogen alpha (Ha) data for these two beautiful nebulae.

Last week I had the only reasonably clear night for some time and so set out to capture the data in widefield. After waiting for clouds to clear and then sorting out a few initial problems I had little time left for imaging before dawn. I did however manage to capture 7 x 5minute exposures @ f3.2 that I was happy with.

  Click image for a larger view …

Image Data:

After processing the Ha data in Iris, I looked out some of my archive RGB data (20D & 100-400 L f5.6 1.5hrs) of the region and set about combining it. The combine process involved adding some of the Ha to the red channel (thus reinforcing the nebula saturation) and then using the Ha as a luminosity layer. Layer opacity was adjusted by eye before a high pass filtering and final output. {This is based on a method by Don Goldman}. A small version of the completed HaRGB image is shown below.

   Click image for a larger view …

For those of you with Microsoft’s Worldwide Telescope, click here to load and view the region.

About this region:

Cygnus lies right across the Milky Way, it contains both large clouds of ionised hydrogen & dark regions of interstellar dust. These two phenomena combine to give us the beautiful shapes and patterns seen above. The nebulae are thought to be about 1900 light years distant. To read more about these nebulae try the articles on the Wiki or on Britannica.

Whilst my previous image of M51 was an improvement upon my original attempt from last summer, I felt that it lacked colour & character; so I’ve had another go at it!

Background Info

As mentioned previously, Messier 51 is located in Canes Venatici and is pictured here with its companion galaxy NGC 5195. The pair are in strong gravitational interaction, hence the disturbances effecting the beautiful ‘whirlpool’ shape. NGC5195 is actually orbiting around M51 in a decaying manner and it is thought that they will collide & merge in another 1 or 2 billion years time.

For the record here again are the galaxy’s vital statistics:

• Visual Brightness: 8.4
• Distance: 37 million light years
• App. Size: 11 x 7 arc mins
• Constellation: Canes Venatici
• Discovered by Lord Rosse in 1845

Below is a cropped and downsized view of my latest image:

  Click image for a larger view …

Imaging Info

As mentioned above I wanted to capture some of the colours, to do so I decided to combine data collection from 2 different cameras & optical setups. The seeing was only moderate during both sets of exposures. Imaging details below:

Session 1

Session 2

Each session’s data was stacked and preliminarily processed in Iris before being exported to Photoshop. Iris processing included drizzling, wavelet noise reduction & a Richardson Lucy deconvolution for the luminance channel, as well as my standard processing routine. The resulting images were then adjusted for image scale, aligned & combined within Photoshop to produce the  image you see above. Note the feint distant galaxy in the top right corner.

I am not convinced that this two setup method was necessarily the best use of my imaging time but it was an enjoyable experiment. As for the final image, well I’m fairly pleased with it considering the less than brilliant sky conditions. At some point in the future I’d like to image M51 in more close detail but that will definitely require excellent seeing and maybe a bigger scope too.

Further Resources

This pair of galaxies give us an insight into the awesome forces at work in the cosmos, for further information about interacting galaxies take a look at Britannica’s article.

Can’t wait? Would you like that close up view of Messier 51 right now? Then follow this link to Hubble’s view of the Whirlpool.

Technorati tags: Hubble Space Telescope, Galaxies, Astronomy

I have a growing appreciation of Globular Clusters, a recent break in the weather allowed me to image Messier object 5. The image below is a stack of only 7 sub-exposures.

  Click image for a larger view …

• Exposure: 18mins (4×2mins, 2×3mins, 1×4mins)
• Focal Length: 1000mm (500mm + x2 extender)
• Focal Ratio: f8
• Camera: Canon 300D (modified)
• Guiding: SX Lodestar / 300mm mirror

Messier 5 was discovered by Gottfried Kirch in 1702 and then again by Messier in 1764. It is 24,500 light years distant and is seen at magnitude 5.6 in the constellation Serpens. Estimates of the number of stars within the cluster vary from 100,000 to 500,000.

To read more about Globular Clusters in general, see what Encyclopaedia Britannica has to say. 

Technorati tags: Charles Messier, Globular Cluster

Earlier on in the Winter, I promised a deeper Orion image. Well with the arrival of my 13nm Ha filter, I’ve been able to take a first shot at this.

  Click image for a larger view …

It’s now getting towards the wrong time of year for me to be imaging low down in Orion but I just about squeaked this one, through the trees & all that. It’ll need more exposure time and will benefit for some really accurate long exposure guiding but I think all that will have to wait until early next winter.

This was my first image using Ha filtering and it is then combined with normal RGB imaging to produce the HaRGB image that you see above.

Barnard’s Loop is a large nebulous shell of dust & ionised hydrogen gas; it is also known as Sh 2-276. The loop partially surrounds the central region of Orion, it is some 1,600 light years from Earth and has a diameter of some 200 to 300 light years. It is currently thought that one or several significant supernova events, about 2 million years ago, blasted this matter out from the core regions of Orion. Then the strong solar winds from the bright OB1 stars of the vicinity, added to the effect and radiation from the same stars now ionises the hydrogen gas, which then emits light in the Ha band. An interesting discussion on this can be found here.

The image below identifies some of the more notable features within the region:

  Click image for a larger view …

I look forward to collecting more exposures & thereby improving upon these images. In the meantime you can see more of Orion by viewing my earlier adventures with Orion.

The 3 Galaxies named:

• Messier 65 (Mag 9.3   SB 12.80)
• Messier 66 (Mag 8.9   SB 12.70)
• NGC 3628  (Mag 10.3 SB 14.21)

make up the Leo Triplet, a classic cluster of Galaxies, as shown below.

  Click on image for a larger view …

In the image above M65 is uppermost, M66 lower right and NGC3628 to the left.

As you might suspect, they are to be found in the constellation of Leo. The 3 galaxies are about 35 million light years distant from us and are sometimes called the M66 group. These galaxies are distorted by the gravitational interactions between them. Whilst being the dullest of the three, NGC3628 is a particularly interesting galaxy with a large & deformed equatorial dust band. Having a low surface brightness it was awkward for Messier to spot and so its discovery was left for William Herschel to accomplish.

I felt like imaging something a bit different last night. My full astro setup is currently dismantled whilst undergoing a PC upgrade and the skies partially cleared during the evening. So out I went with camera & static tripod.

Now Orion is usually a really nice widefield at this time of year, so I started playing around with different settings but then Tamsin’s pony, Snowy, came to offer her help in the proceedings!

So I settled for my full spectrum modified Fuji on the tripod and attempted to produce a portrait of sky & pony. The thing is, pony models don’t keep still for long and stars don’t really show up on fast exposures. So… I had to use a bit of HDR technique to apply duplicate exposures, one for pony & one for sky. Foreground lighting was supplied by the 60Watt tungsten outdoor light on our house, everything else supplied by nature.

  Click picture for a larger view …

I thought of calling it “Pegasus meet Orion” but I’m not sure that Tamsin or Snowy would have been in favour. Oh well, that was a bit of fun, back to work now (which is fun too {grin} ).

I decided to make a final montage, showing the moon in it’s various eclipse states.

Click here to view the image.

Hope you enjoy it, I’m going to put the picture as a big poster on my wall

As promised here is a larger view of the moon at totality; just click on the image to see the large version.

  Click image for a larger view …

An eclipse of the moon happens when the Sun, Earth & Moon are lined up, such that the Earth’s shadow falls across the moon. Once the moon is fully in the shadow, light reaching the moon is only that which has passed through the Earth’s atmosphere; since most of the blue is scattered away, the moon starts to appear orange or maybe even red. A quick look at the blue channel of the camera (see below) shows how little blue is reaching the moon. This is a few minutes after totality was reached.

In the small, rather shaky hand held image below you can see the moon’s position in relation to Regulus (above right) and Saturn (top left corner).

Unfortunately the cloud swept in very thickly by 3-30am and it was raining shortly afterwards, so I did not have chance to image the second half of the eclipse. I feel very lucky to have seen as much as I did. Got to wait a few years now, for the next one.

Well after expecting a cloudy night, we were extremely lucky and the skies partially cleared for almost 2 hours. I still had to shoot through hazy cloud and that was when it was good conditions. A shower of rain caused coats to be thrown over the equipment but we saw right in to totality before the clouds thickened up too much. So a great night, all in all.

I’ve quickly produced this montage of how the eclipse progressed:

  Click the image for a larger view …

A more detailed post to follow, with larger totality image and some of the science stuff too, but for now, I need to go & get some sleep. zz..zz…zz…..zz…zzzzz

Well seeing as my galaxy imaging has been interrupted by a beautiful full moon, I decided to take a shot of the moon. If you’re not already aware of it, we’re expecting an eclipse tomorrow night – about 3am (GMT) Thursday morning. Of course I’m forecast a cloudy night but here’s hoping its clear.

  Click for larger view …

I’ve never got really serious about a full moon shot before, deep sky objects are more my thing, but tonight I took much care using the 40D’s live view to focus really accurately and then took a batch of shots because I was chasing the seeing somewhat. I also used the 40D ‘Highlight Priority’ mode, seems to work well.  Anyway I picked what seemed to be the clearest exposure & processed it in Photoshop & voila. A nice change really.

These are a fascinating pair of interacting galaxies, which, in my opinion, are best viewed together. I would like some further integration time for the image below, but I think its ready for a first cut.

  Click image for a larger view …

The image comprises exposures with both a 40D & a modified 300D, to use the capabilities of both.

M81 (right) is a classic spiral galaxy, somewhat similar in size to our own Milky Way. It is located in Ursa Major at a distance of some 12 million light years from ourselves. The galaxy’s core is most likely centred upon a super massive black hole.

M82 (left) is a curious & extremely active galaxy. It was, until recently, thought to have an irregular structure but it is now discovered to have 2 feint spiral arms. M82, the Cigar galaxy, is in strong gravitational interaction with M81. This interaction has caused huge upheaval in the galactic core, resulting in great star formation activity & the expulsion of clouds of dust & gas.

  Click image for a larger view …

The image above has detected some of their extent, in the far red & infra-red spectrum; for a wider spectrum view, look at this amazing image produced by using Hubble, Chandra & Spitzer together. This extreme activity is also the cause of M82 being an extremely bright source of radio waves.

Both galaxies were discovered by Johann Bode in 1774 and then re-found in 1779 by Pierre Mechain, who added them to Messier’s list.

My previous post about the Rosette contained a wide view taken with an unmodified camera. I have now had chance to image this beautiful nebula with a modified camera. Firstly lets just review some information about the nebula:

The Rosette Nebula is located in Monoceros ( the Unicorn) and comprises of NGC2237 – 9 & 46. It is a large mass of dust and ionised gas. At its core is NGC 2244 a bright young star cluster. It is 5500 light years from Earth.

This image shows far more detail than the previous one but with only 1hr of exposure. In the future I hope to undertake a very deep study of this beautiful object and to include some Ha filtered data too.

Image Data:

BTW This is first light with an Astronomiser modified Canon 300D using Baader Ha pass filter. If you’re in the UK and want an astro DSLR, then why not give them a go.

Below is a widefield image of part of the constellation Virgo.

  Click on image for a larger view …

Amongst the many stars in the image, there are a significant number of galaxies. If you would like to go galaxy hunting for yourself, then click here. You’ll be able to zoom into a larger version of the above image & pan around, looking for galaxies. Tip: don’t miss the little spiral galaxy that’s up towards the top left corner.

Galaxies often fall into groups. Our own Milky Way & Andromeda are the 2 largest member galaxies of our local group. But groups of galaxies are often collected within a Supercluster. Our local Supercluster, of which our group is an outlying member, is dominated by the galaxies of the Virgo Cluster. The Virgo cluster contains a possible 2000 galaxies lying almost 60 million light years away from Earth. The Messier catalogue includes several of these galaxies, M86 & M84 are to be seen just right of centre in the image above, with others such as M91, M90 & M89 lying further out.

For those of you wanting a closer look than that afforded by a 200mm lens, click on the picture below, imaged at 700mm:

   Click on image for a larger view …

This image shows more detail from the centre of the 200mm field, with M86 & M84 at the top right & M87 in the bottom left. This region is often referred to as “The Makarian Chain” and includes the classic interacting “eyes galaxies” (top centre).

Click on image for a larger view …

Above: a crop of the interacting “Eyes Galaxies”.

To view (and download if you wish) a fully labelled photomap of the region, with magnitude data, click here.

Alternatively for a nice map of the whole region, try visiting Atlas of the Universe.

Technorati tags: Virgo, Galaxy, Messier

My plan: to use a Starlight Express Lodestar & 300mm mirror lens to provide guiding for both a 6″ Celestron SCT & a variety of Canon lenses. The problems: how to put the camera & lens together and then how to mount them securely to the dovetail & CG5 (ASGT) mount. The solution? A Mogg adapter!

That’s right, all the way from Australia in only ten days from when I ordered it, the much anticipated adapter arrived last weekend. It’s bottom right in the picture above, the other items being: Manfrotto mount plate, Lodestar camera & Super Paragon 300mm f5.6 Mirror Lens. The adapter is light but sturdy and has a tripod mount thread in its base.

The Lodestar’s type ‘C’ thread screws neatly onto one side of the adapter whilst the lens’ Pentax bayonet fixes to the other side. Using the Manfrotto plate the whole assembly can now be fixed to the bottom of my dual camera mount dovetail (see previous post for details). The picture above illustrates this setup. It can also be mounted directly to the C6SCT tube via the Piggyback camera bracket. The complete solution is light & rigid enough for this to be a secure & balanced fitting. It was in this (SCT) guise that I tested it last night, as in the picture below:

It’s been cloudy here for weeks but last night there was a clearish gap between 2-30am & 4-am. Typically it was the night of the full moon (see picture above)  and misty with it, so no deep sky imaging but plenty of time for testing the camera/lens performance. As promised by Mogg adapters the adapter dimensions are just right for obtaining infinity focus with some adjustment room both ways. What to image? Well the moon seemed like a suitable test subject …

I’m quite pleased with that as a single test image and when picking a star as the target, the computer confirmed good tight focus too. Now what I really need are some beautiful clear nights; I’ll keep dreaming

Technorati tags: Guiding, Mount, Celestron, Astrophotography

For sometime I’ve been intending to build myself a sturdy dual mount and all the recent cloudy weather has left me with the opportunity. I wanted to be able to put 2 cameras onto my CG5 equatorial mount, both with similar alignment. The system needs to be rigid yet very quick to change over between configurations. Typical immediate combinations might be:

• Digital SLR plus Starlight Video Camera
• Digital SLR plus Lodestar guide camera

In the future it might also be asked to carry an astro CCD camera attached to a Canon Lens. Having been pleased with Manfrotto equipment for my daytime photography, I decided to base the plan on their accessories; here’s the starting point:

• Over length dovetail to fit mount – in my case the CG5
• 1/4 inch 20tpi & 3/8 inch 16tpi UNC head cap screws or bolts (to fit std & pro photographic tripod fittings)
• Manfrotto 323 Quick Change Plate Adapter
• Manfrotto 357 Universal Sliding Plate

The Manfrotto quick fit plates are really very secure devices with safety clips too. If any slippage does occur there are also compatible Manfrotto anti-twist spotting scope plates available. At this point can I also recommend Stagonset fasteners to anyone in the UK who is looking for good quality fixings like the UNC cap screws.

Now to put it all together. I drilled an extra hole in the dovetail at one end to take the slide plate fixings. Originally I had intended this to be 3/8 but I decided that might weaken the dovetail too much, so the slideplate thread was reduced to 1/4 with a bronze insert and then a 1/4 fixing was used. Spring washers were used to ensure a substantial hold. I also replaced the smaller screws that were supplied with the dovetail, these give extra purchase to remove any risk of movement. Here’s a picture:

Next the procedure was repeated at the other end of the dovetail, to mount the quick change plate but on the underside this time. The whole setup was now checked for alignment and then the fixings tightened right up. Here’s a picture of the complete assembly:

I was then really lucky, in that the next night I had just a one hour break in the clouds so I could briefly try the thing out. Everything seems very secure, the slide plate allows me extra adjustment to find good balance with a large lens & DSLR whilst the bottom quick change plate works well giving plenty of clearance for the smaller camera. Below are two images of the setup that I tested it with, Canon 20D 100-400L plus Mintron & C lens:

A quick word about the Mintron starlight camera, this is a fabulous piece of kit. If you have children who want to see the view or maybe a group of friends around for a party, this really beats everyone queuing up & squinting through the eyepiece. It is highly sensitive & can internally stack up to 128 frames realtime whilst outputting this video to a TV screen. Below is an image of the plough (big dipper) on TV from the other night (apologies for poor quality but TV screens don’t photograph too well)

The Mintron’s C lenses are interchangeable & it can also be attached to the back of a scope too. Perhaps I’ll do a separate write up on it, after I’ve captured some video with a capture card. I have seen a perfectly respectable M27 with it on the back of the C6SCT and Tamsin certainly loves viewing with it.

So that’s that for now, I’m currently waiting for the arrival of my adapter to mount the Lodestar & 300mm mirror lens together. Once that’s made it here from Australia, I should be able to start guiding. If only the skies would clear …

Technorati tags: Starlight Camera, DIY, AstroPhotography

Well I hope everyone enjoyed Christmas, we certainly did. I am however sat here wondering when I’ll see some clear, dry imaging weather; over 3 inches of rain so far today and more on the way!

Anyhow, all this precipitation has persuaded me to post a few works in progress:

Messier 33 – The Triangulum Galaxy

This is a spiral galaxy about 3 million light years away and at 73×45 arc minutes it appears relatively large in our sky. It is in fact the 3rd largest galaxy in our local group, with a visual brightness of mag 5.7.

  Click image for a larger view …

The image above is a stack of images taken on several different nights. It still needs some extended H-alpha exposures but that will have to wait until I have the right equipment.

NGC2403

This rather attractive spiral galaxy is located some 12 million light years away and in the constellation of Camelopardalis. The galaxy has a visual magnitude of 8.9.

Click image for a larger view …

I would like some extended exposure time on this galaxy, maybe 4 – 5 minute subs, to bring out some feint fine details but again this will have to wait until my guiding kit is setup.

Messier 77 – Cetus A

Another of Messier’s collection of objects, this galaxy is seen in the constellation Cetus. It has relatively small dimensions in our sky (7 x 6 arc mins) and is also rather duller than the 2 galaxies above, visual mag. 9.6. M77 is a barred spiral galaxy, some 50 to 60 million light years away.

   Click image for a larger view …

My image above is a somewhat preliminary ‘first shot’ consisting of 1 hour luminance data only.  As can be seen, longer sub-exposures will be needed to catch the duller part of the spiral arms. Then colour details will be added. The image so far, has been taken with my SX Lodestar and includes no darks or flats.

Whilst experimenting with the SX Lodestar the other night, I decided to take a few frames of the moon which was looking particularly lovely. Using a 752×580 sized chip at 1500mm focal length I’d have a section of the moon with each frame. So I took 12 frames in a less than ideal arrangement (but there we go) and covered all of the visible phase of the moon.

  Click here to see a larger view …

As you can see, I later combined the individual images into 1 mosaic of the moon that evening. It’s not perfect but I’ve learnt some things about creating an Astrophoto mosaic, something that I would like to do more of. The full size image contains quite a lot of data, this is definitely an interesting technique.