The Admiral

Hi guys. Newbie here. My first DSO image while waiting for my first telescope.

Andromeda taken with a Canon 50mm lens and a tripod last night. 4s X 120  F/ 1.4 ISO 800. 

It's just a white blob, but i thought I'd share it anyway  

Welcome Astronator. That's a lot more than a white blob. I'm looking forward to seeing what you achieve with a telescope!

Ian

I'm sure the cognizanti will recognize this (and I don't include myself!), but I'd appreciate knowing what it is of please.

Nice to see some colour coming through.

Ian

I use Kays Fasteners on eBay, a good range of stainless steel nuts and bolts which you can buy in small quantities, postage free and a good service.

Prices are sensible too. My daughter wanted to attach some casters to a couple of boxes, and she needed 32 nuts and bolts in all. It would have cost 15 quid for zinc plated items in B&Q; cost from Kays, under a fiver for stainless!

Ian

When I posted my thread "Messing about with M31" I had no idea of the existence of this excellent thread and the superb work already achieved with 'lowly' gear. Having read the thread "To stack or not to stack: 30 x 1s = 1 x 30s?" by Martin Meredith on 28 May I can see that there is great potential to be had with stacking of short duration subs. OK, I guess at the end of the day, there is no substitute for photons, and that means aperture and time, so we might not be able to see the faintest of detail, but hey, we can still get a good way along the quality scale . Keep 'em coming.

Ian

Welcome to the fold Badger! The subject does have a tendency to draw one in  .

I use a horizontal Yagi in the loft, and I've found, particularly recently, that my background noise levels are well up, up as high as -84dB. I know that other folk's noise levels are below -100dB, so I'm deliberating whether to purchase a low noise antenna, or move it outside, which I'd prefer not to although it would be technically better, or both.  I'm not using the S@N design, but I put it together from another design. Using a dummy load at the end of the cable I'm getting -105dB-ish, so it has the potential to be low. Still, it's challenges like this that make the subject interesting.

Happy hunting.

Ian

I must admit that Spectrum Lab is a bit daunting at first sight. Have a look at another Sky at Night article, which you can download from the Brit. Astro. site: "Configuring Spectrum Lab for Meteor Scatter"  here: http://www.britastro.org/radio/downloads.html

Ian