29/30 -April 2013 Monday/Tuesday

Learning how to set RA and DEC with the Meade. Shame GPS is not working.
Some" twinkle" (reduced seeing). but overall a good night  -10 p.m. to 02.45 a.m.
Moon had now come up and sky was getting washed out.

C/2011 L4 (Panstarrs) - 4.4.13

This was taken on a finally clear night, through clouds close to the horizon and directly over Doncaster town centre, not the best of circumstances, but time was pressing.
Using the M25C and 106 and 25x20sec frames. Every frame was full of cloud, all different patterns, almost worth making an animation of the patterns of cloud passing in front of the comet, but not really, unless we return to the conditions we've had for almost a year, and the cabin fever.
Acquired in Nebulosity, stacked in Astroart and finished off in Photoshop.

M67 - 4.4.13

At last a clear night, lots of time lost in trying to remember how I did things when it was last clear enough to take photographs. This is a return to the M25C, lovely camera, after many trials with the DSLR, mostly failures, enamoured of its small pixels though I am. The telescope used was the Takahashi 106.
Not clear enough to work on nebulous subjects or galaxies, so open clusters fill the bill as I ease into the saddle again, hoping for a good long ride.
The exposure was 32 frames of 60sec each, stacked in Astroart and finally processed in Photoshop. Re-processed, 21.5.13, with more care for star colours and background.

More from Iceland

I have spent all morning trying to make a panorama of two of my aurora photos. It had to be done manually as the difference in time between the two photos meant that I could only merge the stars OR the landscape accurately. In the end the landscape had to win and the resultant picture covers a horizontal field of view of about 180 degrees. It gives a very good impression of how the auroral oval actually appeared (if you turned your head as far right and then left as far as it would go).

To the naked eye, the green of the aurora was obvious but all the other colours seemed to be silver and the “light pollution”was not obvious at all.

Bill Hughes

It seems we must get away from Britain to see clear skies, and another recent trip to Iceland by Bill Hughes this time, enabled him to take these.
He was luckier than others in having 4 clear nights with aurorae each night. His Canon 600D had a 14mm F2.8 lens set at ISO 1600 exposing for 25sec for each. Processed using Auto Smart Fix, Noise Ninja and Star Spikes, with a little help from Photoshop.

The Rosette Nebula

Taken by Rhys Owen, with a DSLR Canon 600, newly acquired and newly modified too, he obviously means business. The forecast was good, clear all night, but he must have had an inside source that told him it wasn't going to hold. He rushed in, set it all up and spent long enough focusing, and it takes some time to do it if you're using trial and error rather than software to do it.
A short couple of 30 sec shots to test and then on with a series of 20x60 sec frames at ISO800, followed by 4x60sec darks. He sat and ran them without any software control, counting them as they went. All I had to do was find the nebula and set the telescope to point at it and balance the mount suitably.
Almost as soon as he's done, the clouds started to roll in. He must have known.
The frames were stacked in Deep Sky Stacker and post processed in Photoshop to produce the final result.

13.2.13 - Aurorae in the Arctic

Taken by Rhys Owen using his Canon 400 with a 50mm lens at ISO1600 for 10sec. He had the camera sat on a tripod but the deck of the ship wouldn't keep still. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to do it again from a more stable position as they didn't reappear when the ship docked. He plans to go back and do it all again.

Kemble's Cascade - 3.2.13

     A poor night of heavy haze and thin streaky cloud, but we made the best of it. Peter was in the visual dome with the others and I was in the photographic, both working on Kemble's Cascade in Camelopardalis, and here are the results of that night.
Peter used a pencil and paper, his first time, while I used the Tak106 and the M25C, unguided.
    Though the line of stars is easy to pick out in the eyepiece it isn't so easy on the screen from the frames taken. Though I took some 35 frames I used only 11, making the exposure 11x30sec. Processed in Astroart and Photoshop.
The drawing in fact does the object more justice than does the photograph, quite a pretty picture in the eyepiece, with the line of stars strewn either side of bright blue star, SAO 12969, and ending near the small Open Cluster NGC1502.
   There were lots of arguments that night among the other observers as to its orientation on the laptop screen, as they all moved from the big Meade in the old dome to the laptop screen in  the new dome to compare, but the orientation I used gets it all onto the frame in a reasonable manner. Northwards is almost exactly from the bottom left corner to the top right. I've rotated and flipped Peter's drawing to match.

30.1.13 - Fireball or Space Junk

At 9:04pm I saw a Fireball. It swept from Cancer through the bowl of the Plough, close to Kochab, then on to the top of Cygnus, though that was in too much haze to be sure, but certainly in that area. Could have got to Lacerta, all very low and in the murk.
It was very bright, very much brighter than Venus, perhaps about mag -7 or -8. Strong green head with orange-red just behind the head. It made a steady straight line as described, then at the end, it made a slight curve downwards, as though running out of power, before it faded out quite sharply. The green head was quite steady, but the orange part behind the head threw off "sparks". It had the overall shape of a very short tailed comet, but much more colourful of course. I heard no noise from it.
Was it a fireball or some space junk burning up in the atmosphere? Certainly impressive.

Aurora in Finland - 7.1.13

 

Taken by Broomstick Rider Number 1, while on a trip to Finland in search of a new Familiar. She found this Aurora among others. She says the little house is a sauna, but I think it's really an outside toilet.

Constellation Orion by Bill Hughes

 

 

 

 

At about 11:30pm, 11.12.12, I took 12 frames of Orion with my Canon 600D and 50mm. F2.8 standard lens. with 90 sec. exposures. Because the lens covers quite a large area of sky with fairly dark at the top of Orion to lighter and more orange at the bottom, it was extremely difficult to get rid of the gradient without also getting rid of the detail. I think the result is quite good considering that it was taken from my garden with all the light pollution of Doncaster surrounding me.
Bill Hughes