As we all know, now is not the best time for stargazing. I have just been out for an hour trying my little 102 Skywatcher Mak out on Saturn and Mars. Enjoyable as ever and the 102 certainly punches above its weight on planetary visual. It is comparable to my Evostar 120 and certainly much more manageable. My Celestron Omni 12mm suits it well giving 108x magnification and lovely crisp views of Saturn with 3 moons visible. After an hour of midge attacks I called it a night, and probably will leave
The steps really cool. When I can be bothered doing some computering, I might try to figure out how to post a picture. I think i decided on my first upgrade eyepiece. Everyone says the 10m that comes with Skywatcher scopes is only so-so, and I really wanted something a bit shorter as well. I'd like some of my favourite globs to fill the eyepiece when the viewing allows. So it looks like its going to be a 13mm Ethos and a 2x Powermate. I need to sell a few things to fund these (I promised the wif
M 29 - An Open Cluster M 29 is an unassuming, rather lacklustre open cluster made up of about seven bright stars some 3,740 to 7,000 light years away in the constellation of Cygnus and anyone with a 4" telescope or larger may wonder how it was ever included in Messier's list of objects not to be confused with a comet. The answer can be found in Messier's own notes where he writes of the star grouping as "seen...in the form of a nebula", perhaps highlighting just how poor the optics and lenses we
So, with the wedding done and dusted.. I've started to get the itch to crack on with the ATIK stuff again. With it being mid-summer.. it's a good time to get the camera work out the way ready for the coming 2013 galaxy season :D Sandrine has booked me a trip to Olly's so there's also another, further driver to have some things working! To recap I have a basic driver working for the Titan and 3-series, with the 4000/11000 waiting until a later release. I have an application with the basic connect
One thing that was very apparent when Pat and I visited OpticStar was that she wasn't going to be able t reach the eyepiece anywhere from above about 10 degrees from zenith. Maybe a little more. As she's showing a lot of interest in the scope, I want to make sure she gets as muc out of it as I do, and so I've order a caravan step from Amazon. The one I ordered is "Milenco Aluminium Single Step Rubber Top". The reason for my choice is that it's a single step with a pretty broad platform. It's 8
NGC 6826 - Caldwell 15 - The Blinking Nebula General Notes Planetary nebulae are the final stage of middle to low mass stars. They are essentially gigantic shells of gas surrounding the nucleus of a dying, progenitor star and one of the best examples of this kind is perhaps NGC 6826. On a cosmic scale, planetary nebulae are considered relatively ephemeral phenomena, lasting anything between 30 to 100 thousand years from formation to complete dissipation. It is possible that our own sun will beco
Replica handbags are in essence knock off merchandise Replica designer handbags. Factories situated mainly in Asia will style handbags which have been really equivalent for the patterns employed from the brand name designers Celine Bag. These replica handbags hope to skirt the law by copying the styles made use of, but applying a slight pattern variation. Even though the slight style variation could in reality make the replica handbag an altogether distinct item, it is actually clear what the in
Hello, my name is Phil. I'm 45 years old, and work in IT management for a large financial institution. I spent many years programming in various languages, including Java, C++, Ruby, Smalltalk etc. When I was about 25 (?) I bought a small Tal-1 reflector, as I'd been interested in astronomy as long as I remember. It cost well over £100, which 20 years ago was a not insignificant amount. I looked through the scope a handful of times, seeing the crescent of Venus, M42, Saturn (though could never m
M 94 - Spiral Galaxy A Bit of General Knowledge M 94 is a spiral galaxy some 15 to 17 million light years away from us. It has a diameter of about 56,000 light years and contains some 60,000 million stars. In this sense, M 94 is considered a generally modest galaxy but it does have some rather special qualities. Like M 82, M 94 is a Starburst galaxy, which means it is in the process of creating stars. It appears that high density stellar waves are compressing cosmic matter into protostars at an
Whilst having a perusal around the new look site (which I thoroughly like) I discovered my blog was just a number ! So to rectify that for those of you who read it I have closed the old blog and now have a 'proper' blog name We left off last time with me having sold on the Evostar 120. I enjoyed its short spell with me but decided I needed something more portable like a 100mm - 150mm Mak. I only do visual observing of mainly the Moon and Planets and needed a scope that could be put away when not
General Plan I've decided to include my general observing plan for the warm summer months ahead because I feel it will not only help direct my own observations and studies but may also help other folk trying to decide what urban wonders they might be able to try for in the following weeks. The listing information includes Messier objects, NGC wonders, and Double Star gems which I think are worth taking a shot at even if the possibility of success isn't 100%. Unless directed otherwise the listing
M 57: The Ring Nebula A Little on Lyra The constellation Lyra is rather small and faint from the city but it is easy to find due to being home to Vega, the 5th brightest star in the northern hemisphere. Interestingly, around 12,000 years ago, Vega (Alpha Lyrae) served as the Pole star and will again if mankind can survive another 12,000 years. Strummed like a guitar rather than plucked like a harp, the lyre is an ancient stringed instrument dating back to around 3,000BCE. According to ancient Gr
Leading up to The Transit of Venus - billed as the biggest event in Astronomy, there had been much discussion in the club about publicity. Some people said 'we need TV, Newspapers, Radio, massive publicity -lets get everyone down there for the greatest show on Earth. I instantly flinched, picturing hoardes of excited visitors under a rain soaked 'Greatest Show on Earth' banner. OK got to stay positive but realistic I thought. Somewhere in between 'American Idol' and a one line ad in the pape
Well what a waste of time and money, i bet loads of us bought solar film to make a filter, but has usual the British weather did not play. I had to watch it on line via link in Norway, and Slooch web cam, which was good, the wonders of technology!! I managed to screen grab some images at 11.00pm and early this morning, 4.30 having looked out the bath room window east, but was low cloud and been raining.I wonder how many of us were geared up!! for a big let down. ning.
So this week has been pretty unsuccessful, to say the least. It began with an attempt to photograph the sun in preparation, or rather as a practice run, for the Transit of Venus. Well, let me regress first by saying how I'd previously used the variable PSU for my 6v motor drives on my 12v sound system. I forgot to reset the PSU to 6v and used it once again on my motor drives. Looking through the eyepiece, I noticed no movement, or rather, that the sun apppeared to be moving through the field of
Solar images taken in H-a during June 2012
The story of the PST Stage 2 modified Lyra Optic 4" f/11 refractor
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a one minute video taken through the PST Stage 2 modified refractor
At last, without a doubt, all is comming together, the dome works well, rain yesterday failed to penetrate, the new layout of the OTAs worked well allowing me to see the same view through all three OTAs. The only problem I have is Ascom, installed it yesterday with the hope of using the laptop for guiding but it failed and I had to remove it, not the first time this has happened. I am looking at getting a guiding setup but have been looking at direct guide rather then from laptop because of th
I finally acquired a Celestron CG-4 mount after weeks of waiting. Now I need to get a dovetail bar that the Lunt LS60 can be attached to via the clamshell and it will be my solar observing mount... Later, I plan to buy an Equinox 80 and tube rings which will replace my ST80 for widefield and a dabble in astrophotography (probably use the NEQ6 if I get serious with that, I am likely to buy a motor drive for the CG-4 anyway so will be trying it on that too).
So I finally think I have something that I can call an Astroimage.
It's not the best, granted, but I'm happy with it from a beginners point of view!
It's M13 again, of course - I wanted to at least get something right-ish before moving onto somethng new.
12 subs of 30 seconds at ISO 800, processed in Registax with one 30s dark.
Here's the (cropped) result!
It's a little dim and lacking in vibrance, but I'm fairly pleased. I'm sure I can improve it with time, but for a beginner, it
Hi there just want to say that,all telescope retailers ,all offer the same service as each other ,royal mail does not make parcels go any faster,so why say "xxx company" delivered in one day most company's do they all offer the same service,they all chat to you on the phone It's the company's that do not have a direct number,now if they was good they would have a direct number,it does not matter if they are shop based or Internet based ,company's that do not offer a direct line do not get my mo
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