Hawksmoor
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A very Merry Christmas to all my chums on Stargazers Lounge around the world. Over the last couple of years, whilst Mrs. H and I have been prevented from travelling, Stargazers Lounge has provided opportunities for us to see images captured from locations around the UK and the wider world by imagers located in many different places. SGL has enabled a wider perspective for us 'lock down oldies' which we both value.
Many thanks to FLO for sponsoring this site and for the excellent mail order service. Dave Eagle's guide to Affinity Photo arrived yesterday, so I shall be producing even more of my blurry technicolor images in the New Year but from now on using a different workflow! A change is as good as a rest!🧐 (I chose this emoji because I thought it look like Sir Patrick.)
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Purchased Affinity Photo and am now bravely facing the learning curve. Lets hope my aged brain is up to it! Thing is, once you stop learning and reinventing yourself, 'you become a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard'.
The recent Affinity Photo post on SGL looks very helpful and am awaiting the arrival from FLO of Dave Eagle's Guide.
Nighty night stargazers.
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From the album: Backyard Astronomy
As the weather in Lowestoft continues to be grim, I used my data from 2020 to create this composite image of the constellation Orion with associated nebulosity. -
Always nice to see the 'Horsey' and Alnitak's companion star often lost in the glare. Thanks for sharing. -
Had my 72nd Birthday today and the excellent Mrs H purchased GradientXTerminator for me!
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Heads up! Noticed this was a free download for Kindle if you have Amazon Prime. Have just started reading this in bed on stormy nights and it appears to be quite an informative read. George in Lowestoft next the sea. -
Ceres on the Move!
Hawksmoor replied to orion25's topic in Imaging - Widefield, Special Events and Comets
Nice captures Reggie. I haven't observed or imaged any asteroids for quite a while. You really appreciate the dynamics and scale of the Solar System when you see these mini worlds move so quickly relative to the stars. Nice work! George -
SGL 2021 challenge 8 - All about Orion
Hawksmoor replied to MartinB's topic in SGL Challenges and Competitions
After we 'put the clocks back' I look forward to my first views of Orion before 'ridiculous o clock', as he rises majestically above our hedge that borders our backyard to the south. Mrs H always says " Orion is peeking over the hedge". This image was captured at 2:00am on the 3rd of November 2021. My first attempt at a widefield version. Canon 600d camera on a Star Adventurer mount. Sigma wide lens at f=14mm. and F5. Stack of 7x 240sec RAW lights (plus darks and Bias) at ISO800. Stacked using DeepSkyStakker, colours and levels adjusted and image cropped using APS . Noise and light pollution reduced using Topaz AI and GradientXterminator. I am currently trying out the GradientXterminator plug-in and am dropping big hints to Mrs H that my birthday is in November and that this would make a great gift for an old astro-imager!
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From the album: Backyard Astronomy
A cropped stack of 1 minute Lights, Darks and Bias at ISO800. 66mm Altair Astro Lightwave refractor with 0.6x focal reducer and field flattener. Canon 600D camera on a Star Adventurer equatorial mount. 02 Nov 2021. -
Nice crisp transparent moonless night to bring in November. Had my mini-rig up and running taking some images of the Andromeda group of galaxies with my Altair Astro 66mm Doublet and Canon 600d camera. Now in bed thawing out!
Nighty night Stargazers.
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JNCE_2021289_37C00014_V01EuropaBest
Hawksmoor commented on Hawksmoor's gallery image in Member's Album
Hi Reggie Nice to hear from you. I guess we both wish we had the kit to image Europa with this much detail😉. I did however enjoy messing about with the Juno data which is marvelous! Sad to hear you have got grey skies and low temperatures too. We have had torrential rain this morning and this afternoon a rather nice rainbow. Best regards George. -
From the album: Other Peoples Photons
Jupiter's moon Europa -taken by the Juno space probe on the 16th of October 2021, PERIJOVE37. Credit: NASA / SwRI / MSSS. Very much enjoyed playing with this data download on a cold grey afternoon. -
Quite a bright afternoon in Lowestoft today, had a ring doughnut covered in sugar plus a black coffee on the seafront. Nice!
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I'm very fond of barbecued 'squid' but have yet to succumb to the Netflix series. Not too fond of dystopian futures - seem to have been 'living the dream' of late. Probably a lot nicer in Edinburgh! You are however quite correct with the second guess. - I am trying to build an adjustable diffraction slit for my latest DIY spectrograph.
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After I had looked up what a Foucault Tester is and does, I can see why you suggested this DIY item. I have never had the patience to grind an astro-mirror and have spent my cash mainly on refractors and assorted lenses. So, good try but no coconut!
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Our postman delivered three quite small packets containing; two 8mm springs, a 300mm length of 12mm square aluminium solid bar and a packet of replacement pencil sharpener blades. Have you guessed what project they're for yet? Todays more utilitarian project however., was cleaning out the back inlet gulley that collects waste from our kitchen sink and the bathroom toilet soil and vent pipe - so my astro-project is even more exciting than that!😉 George in a stormy and locally whiffy Lowestoft.
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Having read Ken Harrison's excellent book Astronomical 'Spectroscopy for Amateurs' at least twice and innumerable visits to Robin's 'Three Hills' internet site, I have decided to haul myself up on the shoulders of giants and try to make yet another spectrograph this time involving a homemade adjustable slit! After a lot of deliberation I have come up with a modular design based on the 'Watkis Spectrograph'. I am currentlyputting together a heap of parts mostly gleaned from old bits of redundant/broken kit or stuff purchased from the NET in days gone past when I thought 'That's too good an offer to miss' (followed by a long languish in a box in the shed). Each module appears to pass the Transpec V2 spreadsheet test - so fingers crossed. At least I will have a project to keep me going through the winter.
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From the album: Saturn
Images taken over 7 years with my 127mm Meade Apo showing Saturn's Northern Hemisphere and the ring system opening up then starting to close. -
From the album: Saturn
Compilation of avi and pngs taken with QHY5L-11 and 127 mm Meade Apo witx3 Barlow on 08 09 2012. Bit of guess work and Sky & Telescope moon finder to position Enceladus and Tethys in glare from planet. LOL. -
Low resolution spectroscopy 2: Presenting your best profile
Hawksmoor commented on Hawksmoor's blog entry in Blog 19648
Thanks Jim for your kind comment. I used an Excel spread sheet downloaded from the NET. Underlying math all as Ken's post. I designed the 3d printed block using OpenSCAD and used an angle of 16 degrees for my 500 lines/mm grating. The main difficilty is getting the camera sensor close enough to the grating at this angle so as to keep the zero and first order spectra on the chip.The QHY5-11mono camera has quite a large sensor in a small cylindrical housing which makes this just about possible without modifyng the camera. Best regards George -
AstroLandscapes #26 - Mayon Core
Hawksmoor replied to FenlandPaul's topic in Imaging - Widefield, Special Events and Comets
A beautiful image Paul. Great composition and light worthy of a painting from the school of the 'Sublime'. George -
After an intensive week of gardening we had Sunday at leisure. Carried out a partial water change , filter backwash and general clean up of our tropical fish tank. Then I took apart a pair of misaligned zoom binoculars from circa 1980's. An absolute treasure-trove of eight lenses in lens- cells and four prisms plus some bits for a DIY focuser. This should come in handy astro-shed- spectrum project wise. Happy but tired old bloke now drinking a lager and anticipating dinner. It is very cloudy in Lowestoft, so not much change there!
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From the album: Jupiter
The GRS looking smaller and paler. 127mm Meade Apo refractor, x3 Barlow and QHY5L-11 colour cam. 08-09-2021. -
From the album: Jupiter
Jupiter 08-09-2021, Meade 127mm Apo refractor-QHY5L-11c camera - 3minute avi clip stacked. . A surprisingly better image than the one I captured of Saturn on the same night. Declination makes all the difference! -
Low resolution spectroscopy 2: Presenting your best profile
Hawksmoor posted a blog entry in Blog 19648
The weather continues to be very unfavorable for astronomy, so I continue to play in my 'shed of delights'. I have addressed some of the issues associated with using a 500 line diffraction grating as a simple filter cell. I did not want to permanently adapt my QHY5-11 camera for spectroscopy and so designed a 3d printed block to allow it to be brought very close to the imaging chip at the optimum angle for a first order spectrum at 550nm. This appears to have minimised 'fish tailing' of the spectral image and aided obtaining focus upon the spectrum rather than the star. In between visits from grandchildren I tried my new spectrometer out on my 66mm Altair Astro refractor. Sitting in our living room on 07 July I could just make out a few stars above our neighbour’s house roof ( approx South). Being a bit idle, I pointed my spectrometer-refractor combo through the patio doors at a brightish star at a convenient height and obtained my first spectral image with the new spectrometer. I didn't obtain any darks and flats or any such 'technical marlarkey' as I was really just giving it a go in between the clouds. I was quite surprised that I captured a reasonable image of the 'mystery star’. One of the not immediately appreciable downsides of using a 500 line diffraction grating is that, as the spectrum is more spread out than using a 100 or 200 line grating, it produces a significantly dimmer image. Possibly this will be improved by using my 127mm refractor, by stacking more light frames and by taking darks and flats. I prepped the spectral image using the freeware IRIS and then had a go at producing an initial calibrated profile using John Paraskeva’s excellent BASS software. I am amazed at the generosity and skills of people who devise and contribute to the development of freeware that open up access to scientific hobbies for old blokes like me! Having obtained a profile, I guessed the star in question was an A type star. I then used Stellarium to look for bright A stars that were observable to the naked eye from our living room on 07-07-2021. The best candidate for my money is the A07 star Mu Serpentis. (This is probably wrong but ‘in for a penny in for a pound’!) Next up I intend to: Image Vega and obtain a camera response curve for the set up. Learn more about using BASS software. Complete a half constructed 3d printed 100 lines/mm set up for obtaining spectra from fainter stars. Come up with a rudimentary grating design to address extended objects of interest. Mess about with a fibre optic link between my telescope and a spectrometer.
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