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tibbs1972

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Blog Entries posted by tibbs1972

  1. tibbs1972
    Had a great night viewing tonight, really clear from around 9pm.
    I've spotted a few satellites, one with a flare.
    I've also seen a few meteors falling to earth, while looking north east.
    My main object of concern has been Andromeda tonight.
    I've managed to get a few shots with my small 130mm Mirror and EOS 1000D camera.
    I don't think I'll ever get a better picture unless I upgrade to a larger scope, but this is my best attempt at capturing Andromeda so far.

  2. tibbs1972

    Southern sky ignored.

    By tibbs1972,

    I realsed tonight that I've been ignoring the Southern sky and can't navigate it very well. I think this is beacause my house faces the neighbours houses and there are street lights there.
    Due to the light pollution, I've always concentrated on the Northern skies.
    Tonight I just tried checking out the south west.
    For the first time tonight, I learnt how to spot Hercules and the Corona Borealis constellations with the naked eye.
    I also managed to spot M13, The Great Globular Cluster with my 10x50 monocular.
    I can just make out the cluster by identifying HIP 81848 and HIP 81673 and then looking between them slightly to the right. If you don't follow, you can see what I mean from the attached image.

    Another notch from the Messier catalogue.
    Pretty chuffed I've learnt a few new things tonight, even thought I didn't get the scope out.
  3. tibbs1972
    Glad the nights are drawing in for better Photos, I'm looking forward to getting some more images.
    I Took a few shots of the northern sky tonight.
    I was concerned that a lot of what I could see was noise on the camera, but when I compared the Photo with Sellarium, I was pleased to see the stars in my Photo matched up with the image on the software, something I haven't done before, it helped to assure me I'm getting something right.

  7. tibbs1972
    Amazing, the clouds have cleared tonight.
    For the first time in months, an opportunity arose.
    Unfotunately, it's Summer and June as well. I managed to spot a couple of stars, but the viewing time
    is so limited at this time of the year. I'm not even going to bother dusting of the Telescope.
    I'l just stick to my handy DSLR.
    I managed to spot Altair in Aquila, but thats the most I can image at the moment.

  9. tibbs1972
    I got home tonight and just had to grab a quick shot of the Moon and Venus together.
    I was amazed by the sight. I've never seen two bodies so close together.
    I used my Cannon Camera with a 2" Light Pollution filter blue tacked to the lens, as suggested by todd8137.
    I love the result, it almost looks Alien.
  11. tibbs1972

    Repair Job Complete

    By tibbs1972,

    Somehow, I got a burst of enthusiasm today and decided to repair my EQ2 tripod this evening.
    After an hour and drilling and tapping, I managed to get it balanced.
    As it happened the clouds also cleared.
    I quickly setup the laptop and had another shot at using a Webcam.
    I managed to get about 30secs of footage before the clouds rolled in, so I didn't get a chance to practice focusing with the webcam.
    After downloading and using Virtual dub to splice the video and remove the rubbish frames of the video, and putting the 150 or so frames into registax, I managed to create the image attached.
    I think its the highest power image I've ever managed to get of the moon. All in all, I'm back on a high again. I seem to have made the Tripod a bit more stirdy as well with the fixings I made and have managed to track the moon tonight, which I've never managed to do before.
    A very short, but worth while observing session in the end before the clouds rolled in.
  12. tibbs1972
    A while back I purchased a Philips SPC900NC Webcam and flashed it etc to use with Sharpcap Webcam imaging software.
    I then watched the astronomyshed tutorials on youtube to learn how to setup the camera.
    I downloaded the software from the link below.
    http://sites.google.com/site/rwgastro/sharpcap
    After messing around with the camera, all I managed to get was a flashing screen. I got frustrated and gave up and I still couldn't get the Philips camera working tonight.
    Yesterday, I thought I would have another crack at it, so I decided to keep the cost down and purchased a cheap Webcam from Tesco for about £7.85.
    Tonight, I removed the lens from the webcam and taped it to my cannon T-ring adapter using electrical tape and installed it on my Telescope.
    After an hour of messing around with settings, I was again getting frustrated, as all I could get were light and dark screens testing with a torch and led etc.
    I was about to give up again, but then I realised I had missed a crucial point.
    There's no point waving the scope about at night trying to find something to focus on.
    I had forgotten one crucial step in the process.......
    Before messing around with Sharpcap Settings, I should have aligned the Telescope with an object using a normal eye piece, in this case, my 15mm Plossal.
    One of the most annoying problems with my location is a cement factory about 1 1/2 miles north of the village with 24/7 lighting.
    But tonight, this had a really big advantage.
    I setup my scope to align with some of the lights on the factory roof.
    In anticipation, I quickly swapped my eye piece with the webcam and attempted to focus....
    Success, suddeny 2 of the lights came into foucs on my laptop screen.
    I'm now ready to have a go at recording Planets ( very ambitious, I know ) with my telescope and cheap Tesco Webacm.
    I'm just waiting for the clouds to clear, but I do feel a great sense of achievement, managing to get the camera and software working.
    I've attached my first image with the Webcam and Telescope, I know is not an astronomical image, and I need better focus, but It's the achievement of getting the Webcam working that I'm so chuffed about.
  14. tibbs1972

    Attempt at a Mosaic

    By tibbs1972,

    I've been playing around with Microsoft ICE.
    It's really easy to make a mosaic with it. I Just had a go at stitching a second image to the origional photo to widen the final image.
  16. tibbs1972

    Big Dipper 3rd Jan

    By tibbs1972,

    30sec Exposure ISO1600, f5.6
    Took this earlier in Jan, just converted it to JPEG.
    Unfortunately, there's a huge 24/7 cement factory North of my house causing a lot of light pollution, so I can't get the best images to the North.
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