petevasey

Nice photos, thank you for posting - in the UK we were completely clouded out Peter

Yep, but what a great industry to work in - it doesn't matter how often you get it wrong, you still keep your job!

The Moon is now well over Venus, which for me is due to reappear around 0945. Solid cloud And looking at Sat24.com is much the same not only over all the UK, but a fair bit of Europe as well. Hopefully someone will image the occultation and post it on SL. Cheers, Peter

I reckon that's a pretty darn good image What you call poor seeing in Southampton is probably as good or better than I ever get here in the lee of the Pennines. I've got my fingers crossed for Mars this year, but don't expect to have any acceptable Jupiter images until early December 2024 when it will culminate for me at 57 degrees altitude and 48 arc-secs diameter. Again, well done! Cheers, Peter

On June 19th at approximately 0740 UT (0840 Summer time) the Moon occults Venus, which reappears a little over an hour later. Obviously times and durations will depend on the location of the observer. Best to use an accurate planetarium program - I favour Skymap Pro. Daylight of course, so good clarity required. Probably not too much turbulence that time of day in the UK. Anyway, I decided to do some tests today. At the moment Venus is only 11 degrees from the Sun. The Moon well away at 58 degrees. On occultation day the separation from the Sun will be 22 degrees to the West. So this image is obviously a composite, but is to scale (cropped from the originals). I've coloured the Venus background - it was washed out being so close to the Sun. I've rotated both Moon and Venus 180 degrees to approximate their appearance at the time. Canon 700D on TMB refractor at 650 mm focal length (still set up from my comet pics) but I will use a longer focal length on the day. Exposure times were different today because of the sky background, but of course will be a compromise on the day. Weather permitting - fingers crossed! Skymap did a great job finding everything. I pointed roughly at the Sun and told my mount it was looking at Aldebaran which is near the Sun at the moment. Then (running it via Skymap) did a GOTO to the Sun using solar filters of course, then slackened the clutches and manually centred on the Sun. Then it was able to find both Venus and the Moon. Of course only one movement on the day, and the Moon much easier to see on the camera screen. But hopefully we will see something like this although the Moon crescent will be slimmer. All being well I'll take images at 15 second intervals and animate both entry and exit. Cheers, Peter.

Hi, Sean, Yes, you've got to grab the opportunity when you can! I've had a quick go at your image with this result - hope it helps. Cheers, Peter

You could compromise and get a 2.5x Televue Powermate. They give a better image than a standard Barlow, but of course they are relatively expensive. There's a wide choice at The Widescreen Centre - worth a browse. Best of luck, Peter

Ater my effort on Friday (22nd May) I hoped to have a second crack at comet C/2017 T2 PANSTARRS in the vicinity of Messiers 81 and 82, with it better placed for the composition of the image. A number of weather forecast sites promsed clear skies, and indeed in the early evening things were clearing up nicely. With Astronomical twilight being the best on offer I decided to image between 12.30 and 1.30 to get the darkest sky available. But when I went out around 11.30 to make a leisurely start - HORROR! solid cloud cover It wasn't until almost 1 am that things cleared enough for me to start aligning etc., so 1.15 before I started imaging in earnest, and by 2 am the sky had lightened so much that the background was excessive. So in the end I only had 7 subs to play with, the later ones with a rather light background and the combined image had a very noisy background and generally poor contrast. Much processing later and this is the result, but not what I'd hoped for. Anybody else successful, perhaps from further South with darker clearer skies? Canon 700D with TSFLAT2 on TMB105 refractor (650 mm focal length). 7 subs x 5 minutes at ISO1600. Cheers, Peter

Thanks everybody. Hi, Paul, it didn't clear here until well after midnight. Then started to haze over around 2 am, so I had to scrap some subs. It should be clear again tomorrow (Sunday) night and much less windy, when the comet is well located and the Moon is still out of the way. Sky is darkest between 12.30 and 1.30. So fingers crossed. Cheers, Peter

When I experimented a few nights ago here (sorry Admin that should have been in this section) I knew that the field of view would be ok for Saturday or Sunday, but marginal for Friday. Nevertheless because it was reasonably clear tonight (Friday!) I had to go for it. So here is comet C/2017 T2 PANSTARRS as it approaches M 82 and friends. I knew from my earlier shot that the tail should be pointing East, and so it was (North is up). I could of course have framed the comet lower down in the image, but that would then have missed out the little galaxy NGC 3077, poor thing. 10 x 5 minute subs, Canon 700D at ISO 1600 with TSFLAT2 on TMB105 refractor (650 mm fl), off-axis guided. Cheers, Peter.

Thanks, John. North Somerset - probably about 3 1/2 degrees further South than me, so still almost full darkness for some of the night. Best of luck over the weekend. Roll on Swan, but it won't be easy for us! Cheers, Peter

With comet C/2017 T2 PANSTARRS due to pass close to M81 and M82 this weekend, I decided on the rig I want to use, but thought I should test it - using the old style Celestron off-axis guider I was able to fit my TSFLAT2 field flattener at the correct distance to obtain a flat field on my TMB105 refractor. In theory! Only Astronomical twilight for me now, but a lovely clear night tonight, so gave it a go. And yes - a flat field with round stars into the corners even on the full size image. 7 x 5 minute subs with my Canon 700D (modded) at ISO1600. Fingers crossed for a clear night out of the three possibles this weekend. Cheers Peter

That's a great find Derek! Incredibly versatile. Thanks for the heads up. Alas, it doesn't get rid of the clouds Cheers, Peter

Well, the weather forecast was correct and it did cloud over. But not before I managed to get on target and snatch 5 subs! As I intended, 5 minute subs at ISO3200, Canon 700D on f 7.5 950 mm refractor (Meade Series 5000 127). I knew they would be a bit noisy at that ISO, but had it stayed clear I would have gone for at least 12 subs, probably more. But this will have to do. Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker using the comet and stars setting, finished in Photoshop. At least I managed to capture those faint galaxies as well. I hope people in the South had better luck! Cheers, Peter

For those lucky imagers living in the South of England with clear skies forecast, (alas cloudy for me tonight), comet C/2017 T2 PANSTARRS passes very close to Arp 80 (NGC 2633) in Camelopardalis. NGCs 2634 and 2634A also very close. But all these galaxies are faint, around mag 12 so will need reasonable length exposures. If I had been able, I would have gone for 5 minutes at ISO3200 with my Canon 700D on f 7.5 950 mm refractor. It would actually fit at 2000 mm, but the movement of the comet would of course have then been doubled. Skymap chart attached. Cheers and good luck, Peter