spaceman_spiff

Sun spot number 2706 taken on 21st April 2018 at about 13:20. This is the first solar image of the year for me and it shows a nice amount of detail. The umbra and penumbra are nicely defined with extended faculae radiating out. The sunspot was near the solar limb to not close enough for me to comfortable place it in one frame. I like to do this because it give a better sense of scale (relative to the diameter of the Sun). Image take with my Skymax 150 (no Barlow lens) on a Eq5-Pro mount (with pillar). The camera was a Canon 550D in 60fps movie crop mode ISO 100, 1/200 sec exposure.

South-western lunar terminator, 28/03/2018. Comments: This is a quick scan of the region mainly to provide an example image following some star tests. I also dropped the camera recently and wanted to check everything was all right! The main features here are Mare Humorum and the crater Gassendi at its north edge. The thin shadow at Gassendi’s eastern wall is very nice. West of Mare Humorum is the deeper crater Mersenius stronger shadows highlight its relief. Further south and right on the terminator is the large crater Schickard just a small shaft of light is able to graze its floor. If I had more time I would have done a time-lapse showing the illumination growing through the night. Telescope: SW 150mm F12 Mak-Cass. With a Baader fringe killer filter. Mount: SW EQ5 pro with extension pillar. Camera: Canon EOS 550D in 60 frames/s movie crop mode, ISO 200, exposure 1/60s. I took 3 minute recordings (10800 frames) for each panel. Processing: Movies were initially processed in Pipp, keeping the best 2000 frames and decompressing them. The decompressed frames were then passed to Registax aligned using around 100 points. The best 90% of the frames (using the Registergraph) were kept and stacked. The final image was enhanced by amplifying the first three wavelets by 50, 10, and 2 respectively. Drizzle 2x was also used. Full .tiff also attached Mosaic.tiff

My wife and I took a trip down to Leicester (18/03/2018) to visit the Museum of the Moon exhibit. Very impressed! It was busy but plenty of space to get nice photos. I was going a round with my Moon map pointing out all the major craters, so much fun. I haven't been to Leicester since I was a child but I am definitely going to visit again.

Lunar terminator time lapse taken on 25th February 2018 (between 20:19 and 23:30). The animation is of the lunar southern region including the crater Hainzel (middle). The shadows are quickly receding within the walls of Heinzel but this effect slows down as the Sun rises on the lunar surface. Lunar liberation is also evident as a tilting effect. Atmospheric conditions were excellent throughout the night, giving more consistent performance from my scope. Equipment: Skywatcher Skymax 150 on an EQ5 pro mount. Canon 550D in movie crop mode with a Baader fringe killer filter. I checked the focus of the scope three times with only slight adjustment required. Each frame is a stack taken from a 5 min video (at 60fps). Each video was recorded with a 10 min interval. Alligning, stacking and processing done with Registax 6, decompressing and final frame alignment done with Pipp.

Lunar terminator time lapse taken on 24th-25th February 2018 (between 20:19 and 02:21). The Moon was waxing from 67% and 69% full. The seeing was good for the first 2 hours then deteriorated as the Moon approached nearby houses. This leads to a drop in detail. The animation is of the lunar southern region including craters Tycho (top right), Clavius (bottom) and Longomontanus (middle left). Longomontanus is displaying the greatest effect of the moving terminator with its central peak appearing out of the darkness and the shadows of the crater walls forming a shrinking arc around it. New features begin to appear on the terminator as well to the south. Equipment: Skywatcher Skymax 150 on an EQ5 pro mount. Canon 550D in movie crop mode at ISO100 with a Baader fringe killer filter. I checked the focus of the scope three times during the night and each time very little adjustment was needed. Each frame is a stack taken from a 5 min video (at 60fps). Each video was recorded with a 5 min interval so as not to run the memory card out of space. Aligning, stacking and processing done with Registax 6, decompressing and final frame alignment done with Pipp. Some of the final frames were automatically colour re-balanced which lead to a bluish hue, I should manually re-correct them...later.

Date 13-14/02/2018 (23:12-02:07). M51 The Whirlpool Galaxy. 2x drizzled (non-drizzled attached). Weather: Excellent clear skies, no wind, good seeing. Clouds moved in at about 02:00. Optics and camera: Skywatcher Evostar 120 F/D=8.33 (Achromat) with a Baader UHCs filter. The camera was a IR-filter removed Canon 600D. Settings: 54 x 3 minute lights, 50 darks from library, 100 flats taken the next day and 100 bias frames taken next day. ISO 800. Mount: Skywatcher AZ-EQ6 with extension pillar. The mount was auto-guided with a synguider (version 1). Processing: Calibration, registration, integration and basic image stretching all done in DSS. Some tweaking done in GIMP. No problems with the flats this time. The frames were 2x drizzled. I am pleased with this stack, my best image of M51 IMO. The beautiful spiral structure and bands in between them are visible here. Also the connecting band between the to galactic nuclei is clear; this is not easy to get from my location! I am very happy that the very faint clouds of stars thrown off from the smaller companion (NGC 5194) can also be seen. I never thought they would be within reach of my telescope. As with the previous image of NGC 2403, the imaging run went well. The autoguider tracked without interruption for the entire session (no wind helps here). Also, because of the accurate PA, all but one of the subframes were usable in the final stack. If only the clouds didn't appear I could have got another 40 subs!

Date 13/02/2018 (19:34-22:36). NGC 2403. 2x drizzled (Non-drizzled attached). Weather: Excellent clear skies, no wind, good seeing. Optics and camera: Skywatcher Evostar 120 F/D=8.33 (Achromat) with a Baader UHCs filter. The camera was a IR-filter removed Canon 600D. Settings: 56 x 3 minute lights, 50 darks from library, 100 flats taken the next day and 100 bias frames taken next day. ISO 800. Mount: Skywatcher AZ-EQ6 with extension pillar. The mount was auto-guided with a synguider (version 1). Processing: Calibration, registration, integration and basic image stretching all done in DSS. Some tweaking done in GIMP. No problems with the flats this time. I was very careful not to nudge the camera coming back into the house. The frames were 2x drizzled. I am pleased with NGC 2403, it is faint but just visible in the camera viewfinder. After stacking, lots of faint clumps of the galaxy can be seen as well as the diffuse glow the galaxy has in between. The faint spiral arms show the tilt of the galaxy's axis relative to us. As for the imaging run, I was very happy. The autoguider worked flawlessly and my polar alignment (just using the polar scope) was bang on. The auto guider made only one or two corrections for each 3 min exposure (this is the best I have seen). All subframes were used for stacking.