Hi from Surbiton, land of night lights, UK

[zotric]

It was a lovely moon here last night and it's one of the few things we can really study in these parts. Every building seems to be lit up like it's Christmas! Anyways, I've been an on-off amateur astronomer for over 10 years. Still using trusty Meade cheapo 4.5" reflector. It's been gathering dust for about 8 years but recently I was a bit inspired by studying cosmology (obviously this is fairly irrelevant to amateur optical astronomy but logic is never a big factor in desire). When I took out the scope last week the images I was getting using the equally ancient Philips Toucam were pretty manky. So I re-collimated it: what a trial that was. I used a Cheshire collimator. SO I conquered my fear and I think I now have offset collimation which seems to work well. Stars are now points rather than smears on the CCD. Too much turbulence to see the Airey disc. Magnification with the Toucam is absurdly large. Just right for planets though - I think the sensor is a good match to the angular resolution. But I'm looking for a bigger CCD sensor for wider field observations. I've included my first processed CCD image. Captured and stacked with K3CCD Tools. Used Paintshop Pro 8 to do some unsharp masking. I just spent about half an hour on it so I'm pretty sure it could be better. I love the way the craters light up on the limb.

All the Best! 

[ronl]

Hi Zotric welcome to the lounge

nice image, looks like Sinus Iridum and the crater to the right is Plato 3,

which is around Mare Imbrium, when you have taken more please post.

Good Luck and Clear Sky's

[Pete Presland]

Hi welcome to SGL from Pete in Bedfordshire

[Pig]

Hello & welcome to SGL

Shaun

[JamesF]

Welcome to SGL.

That looks like a reasonable image from the Toucam. The Moon is tricky to get focus perfect on, so I think you've done a good job. Assuming it's the same camera sensor as the SPC900 it's well worth hanging onto the camera because there's little to beat it for planetary imaging unless you're willing to spend hundreds of pounds.

It's worth considering using a DSLR for wider field if you have one, at least to get started.

James

[Superdavo]

Welcome to SGL and nice shot of the Moon!!

[HIP3802]

Hi, Zotric, and welcome to SGL!

[dick_dangerous]

Welcome to SGL from a fellow SW Londoner. I observe from Bushy Park - you get some surprisingly good views in there!

DD

[Mr Spock]

Hi, welcome to SGL

[zotric]

Thanks to all for the encouragement. The image was very wobbly with light cloud scudding across. So I think K3CCD did a good job. Captured at 5 or 10 frames/sec. Interesting that Toucam is still regarded as a good sensor. One more image for here, I think. In this one I paid more attention to the stacking. Selected a centre point and stacked only 6 frames. It seems better

 [attachment=99873:K3CCD_0006.jpg].

. Thanks again.

[avtaram]

Welcome to SGL.

Avtar

[m37]

Hi mate. Welcome, and that's a really cool pic of the moon. She's such a great subject!

[Charon]

Hi from me too.

[Jim Steele]

Hi and welcome to SGL, a really friendly forum. Have fun, Jim

[michigander]

Welcome to SGL, Zotric!

Dana

[JamesM]

Hi and welcome to the forum

Clear skies

James

[glowjet]

Hi Zotric and welcome to SGL, so you are from my old home town, used to live in a Queen Anne property in Adelaide road, many ,many years ago

[Bizibilder]

Hello Zotric and welcome to SGL!!

[Dave Wall]

Hello welcome

[zotric]

My continued thanks. One small detail: I think night falls at the terminator. Should not have stated the limb!

[Siriusmeg]

Hello and welcome from me too

[nytecam]

My continued thanks. One small detail: I think night falls at the terminator. Should not have stated the limb!

Welcome to SGL. You're also welcome to attend your local AS eg Ewell AS at Nonsuch HS for Girls Cheam tomorrow night @ 8pm sharp for chat and observe via school's 11" Celestron in rooftop dome.

And what's this about "land of night lights"? I'm a very few miles from you and great deepsky imaging from home in 1-5m is easy - check my link below

[zotric]

Thanks Nytecam. I've just spent an encouraging hour or so looking at the amazing (to me) results you are getting with a small telescope and with light pollution rampant. You've taught me that I do not need a bigger telescope. I do, however, need to get to grips with the setting circles (such fun in the dark!) and better focussing. Those would be the number one and two priorities. Number three: a few friends and I have been thinking about techniques to remove turbulence from images. This seems to be a quite underdeveloped area and a good physics/programming challenge. The returns could be spectacular. Stacking wobbly images of the moon often seems to make matters worse than just selecting the best frames. The reasons are pretty obvious: alignment works on best fit but the craters are all changing shape! Of course we know they are really static: you would think this would make it easy to extract and cancel out the turbulence but we've yet to find a simple solution to the problem. Another observation is that surely the apparent movement and other diffraction effects of turbulence could lead to resolution enhancement. Turbulence a benefit. Shock Horror! I probably need to start posting under a new topic. Thanks for the invitation, by the way. Yes I am interested in attending a local AS or maybe joining in a local star party. Best Regards.

[Geordie mc]

Hello and welcome from Northumberland.

[PeterW]

Hi from the summit of Hampton Hill. If your scope is collimated and focused and the exposure short enough (to prevent motion blur) then stacking in Registax or Autostakkert will make a big difference. Nytecam has really pushed the envelope for rapid imaging of deep sky stuff (12" scope though ;-). There are a number of good astro societies within fairly easy reach so you should be spoilt for choice, as well as all the people on SGL too!

All the best

PeterW