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Hawksmoor

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Blog Entries posted by Hawksmoor

  1. Hawksmoor
    I was so keen to use my new 'fixing plate' - piggy-backing my little 66 mm. Altair Astro ED refractor, that I defied the clouds, a rain shower and finally extremely bright moon light.  First of all and to test the seeing I tried capturing some video clips of Neptune using my 127mm.Meade Apo Refractor and a x3 Televue Barlow.  An absolute disaster ! - Neptune was quite low over my neighbour's roof and the tiny image was 'bobbling' about on thermally active localised air currents.  Further more and because the planet was so near the horizon, colour dispersion was a major issue. I eventually gave up and decided to use the little Altair scope to image the full moon which by about 1.00am was looking quite good and stable in a dark sky.  Using my QHY5-11 colour camera at prime focus provided an image size that was just too big for the chip - so a 2-pane composite image was the way forward.  I also used the 127mm. Meade  with the x3 Barlow to capture some video of Mare Crisium but the atmosphere wasn't stable enough to take this amount of magnification with any great success.
    The plate works quite well but the alignment with the main scope is a bit out - will give this a bit of thought and will probably make a few adjustments at some time in the future - I have a lot of projects on the go at the moment!




  2. Hawksmoor

    Funny old week

    By Hawksmoor,

    Last few days it has been very hot, so quite unusual for us folk on the windy East Coast. Even went in the sea and it was WARM!
    Due to haze and visiting grandchildren didn't use either of my telescopes but on the plus side had some great wide-field views through my 11x80 binoculars . M13, M92 and M31 :smiley: :smiley: :smiley: . Managed to view a number of very bright slow moving meteors, quite beautiful! I also thought that with averted vision I could just pick out a grey dot where M57 should be, but this could be old eyes and wishful thinking! :shocked:
    Worst shock horror! Visiting my friends on their boat I dropped my trusty and well used Lumix compact camera in 6 feet of murky salt water. :mad: Good news my long suffering partner bought me a new one. :kiss:
    I am still testing my homemade meteor detecting radio telescope (The LVST). Have been building a website for it. If interested please visit at
    http://missbissuk.wix.com/lvst
  3. Hawksmoor

    Grrrrrrrrrr !

    By Hawksmoor,

    If it looks like a clear night, is cloud free like a clear night and you can see stars like on a clear night............ It probably isn't a clear night because there's just enough fog, mist or other agent of atmospheric mischief sufficient to prevent me obtaining a sharp avi-clip of Mars. It's 12.20am, the Council has been kind enough to extinguish the street lights, Mars is approaching opposition and I might as well go to bed!!!! I'm not adding an 'entry image' because I haven't got one. Grrrrr!
  4. Hawksmoor
    Well normally I'm a bit of a " give it a go" or "I wonder what happens if I push this button" sort of bloke. Anyway for whatever reason I purchased a couple of ledger type books from Poundland and started two observational logs. One log for visual observations and one for the LVST (the Lowestoft Very Small radio Telescope). So last night, I used the moon to calibrate the focus points for my camera - telescope -barlow lens combinations and wrote it all down in my log book. Train spotting next!
    The sky was a bit cloudy and the moon was in one of the gum trees at the bottom of my garden, so imaging was not really on but I quite liked this photo. Nice craters on the limb.

  5. Hawksmoor

    Io Mystery

    By Hawksmoor,

    Some time ago, I published an image of the shadow transits of Ganymede and Io I had taken on the 9th March 2014. The moon Ganymede was clearly visible but try as I might I could not find Io against the clouds of Jupiter. I used APS 'creatively' to try and convince myself that I had found it but eventually realised that if you clicked the sharpening tool enough times in any location on the cloud tops of Jupiter you could create a nice Io just about anywhere you wanted to!
    Anyway and eventually, I stopped clicking my mouse and engaged my eyes and brain. I had always been aware that in my image, Ganymede's shadow was far from circular. I had dismissed this as an artifact of the curvature of the planet, the shadow was close to the limb so an elliptical rather than a circular shadow was not unexpected. However when I thought about it, if it was being caused by the curvature of the planet, you would expect the major axis of the ellipse to run perpendicular to a tangent drawn at the the limb and roughly through the centre of the face of Jupiter. Even a cursory inspection of the image showed this not to be the case. Enlarging the shadow showed that the pixels were centred at two points and one set of pixels was distinctly less bright. Could this be a partial solar eclipse of Io by the moon Ganymede? As Io orbits inside the orbit of Ganymede this would appear to be a theoretical possibility. Any thoughts and advice on this would be welcome.


  6. Hawksmoor
    Having connected the FunCube Dongle Pro+ to the newly erected Yagi aerial and my wife's laptop, I sat back in my shed watching a lot of wiggly lines dance across the screen and listened to a lot of white noise. Rather like an avante-garde 1960's art installation. Then it happened, there was a little whistle reminiscent of a canary on Trill and a little line appeared on the scrolling graph. I apparently had captured my first meteor or possibly the 14.30 Airbus from Norwich to Amsterdam.
    The LVST has been tested but as yet Jodrell Plank is not operational, I need to save up for a second hand computer to leave running in monitor mode.
    Anyway I'm quite pleased with my new toy and for those that are interested I will keep you posted on further developments.
  7. Hawksmoor

    Learning my Lines

    By Hawksmoor,

    Well eventually, I think I managed to get my 'thinking' head around some of the basics of using Visual Spec software for producing and calibrating a line spectrum of the bright star Vega. 
    About 8 weeks ago, I affixed my homemade spectrometer to the business end of my 127mm refractor and obtained some faint and blurry video of Alpha Lyrae and its first order spectrum.  Anyway time passes and after a lot of fiddling about and numerous software crashes, I managed to plot a wiggly line and identify three of the Balmer Series Hydrogen Absorption lines ( well I think I did or it could all be wishfull thinking). The thing is I've ended up with something and hopefully its a calibrated spectrum of Vega.  I leave you to be the judge?
    I tried using Wiens Law and my spectrum to calculate Vega's temperature and was at least half the published temperature of 9600K.  I concluded that Vega does not therefore radiate energy as a 'Blackbody'.
    Anyway this small scientific step has wetted my appetite for spectra and I have some virgin video of Deneb and Altair to play with which at my current rate of progress should keep me busy until Boxing Day.  I am also considering a new spectrometer design - using a camera with better controls and a a bigger chip. This could see me undertaking some 'serious shed action' after Christmas. More glue Santa if you please!
     

  8. Hawksmoor

    Les Granges

    By Hawksmoor,

    Toot and I had a wonderful week with Olly and Monique in the Haute Alpes. We enjoyed the magnificent dark skies, the stunning Milky Way, looking through Olly's big Dob and drawing and painting with Monique.
     
    We saw for the first time: The Crab Nebula, The Swan Nebula, The Eagle Nebula and all of the Veil Nebula. The Witches Broom was fantastic and through a wideangle eyepiece and Olly's monster of a Dob it appeared almost 3D. We also looked at the Lagoon and Triffid Nebulae before they dropped below the horizon. From our backyard and through my 127mm. refractor, we quite often look at M13 but such views were no preparation for the visual trreat we had through the big Dob at Les Granges. Blew our socks off!
     
    The skies were really dark and each clear night, I treated myself to a couple of hours taking unguided photos with my Canon 400d DSLR mounted on a travel tripod. I have attached a selection of images from our week.
     
    During the day Olly helped me improve my very basic astro imaging digital skills. The man has considerable patience! He also took me through an imaging run using side by side mounted refractors to capture several hours worth of colour and luminance data of M33. Whats more I got to take home the data to practice my new learnt skills. At some stage my version of the M33 data will appear in my gallery.
     
    We really enjoyed our stay at Les Granges, Olly and Monique are very nice people and excellent hosts. I cannot think of a better place to enjoy and image the night sky. During the day and if you can pull yourself away from the laptop, the landscape is spectacular, there are plenty of opportunities for walking, cycling, climbing, birding, photography, painting and even collecting fossils. A great place for both strenuous activiy and rest.
     
    Thanks Olly and Monique
     

  9. Hawksmoor
    'Calculating the Cosmos' by Ian Stewart and 'The Universe Next Door' a New Scientist compilation are both extremely enjoyable reads and have kept me going in between the'dark clear nights' here on the east coast.  So having time on my hands this summer, I prepared a digital image and poem in 'homage' to two of my favourite pursuits: reading books on cosmology I barely understand and eating shellfish most people tend to avoid. 
     
    'Winkles in the fabric of Space-Time' - mixed media - George Roberts - June 2018
     
    "If there were winkles in the fabric of Space-Time
    At the Planck scale squid and plaice would rhyme
    If the Universe and Albert Einstein could spin on one sharp pin
    Might each sardine simultaneously be alive and dead in it's tin?
    Perhaps dark matter would even cease to matter?
    If cod, god and gravity were resolved in batter".
     
    George Roberts from the book 'A Brief History of Gastropods'
     

  10. Hawksmoor

    Lovely Night

    By Hawksmoor,

    My eight year-old grandson came to stop with us for the weekend. We picked him up after school in Southend so after a two hour journey to our house we were all tired. The mist cleared by the time we reached Lowestoft and he asked about the bright star in the sky. I said it was the planet Jupiter and he was interested to see it through my scope. Showed him Jupiter, the Pleiades and the Moon through my refractor. He thought it was all great! Astronomy in your backyard doesn't get better than this.
  11. Hawksmoor
    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.
     
     


  12. Hawksmoor
    I thought I might attend a talk 'Mars Revisited and Revealed So Far' at the Waveney Gymnastics Centre, Notley Road, Lowestoft, this evening at 7.00pm. This will be a big step for me as I am not a clubs and society man. More of a Lone Space Ranger! My wife is encouraging me to be less of a recluse. She is accompanying me this evening, just in case I back out at the last minute!
    If any SGL members are going tonight please say hello. I shall not be carrying a copy of the times, but I'm readily recognizable, short fat bald old bloke with a white beard and a walking stick.
    The rain is still intermittently torrential!
    http://www.clubbz.com/club/2895/lowestoft/lowestoft-and-great-yarmouth-regional-astronomers-lyra
  13. Hawksmoor

    Lowestoft Pier

    By Hawksmoor,

    Well I've made a start on constructing my permanent backyard telescope pier by drilling the 6mm. mild steel laser cut 200mm. dia. disc to take the three levelling threaded studs and the 12mm. bolt for fixing my pillar extension tube to the plate.  My investment in new drill bits and cutting oil turned out well, particularly as I have no pillar drill and had to accomplish the task using my trusty handheld Black and Decker. 
    I am trying to minimise the costs involved by using as many bits and pieces that have spent many a year languishing in my shed.  Using the extension tube, which I already possessed, saved me the cost of a 'puck' and after rooting about in my shed I found some reinforcement bar and most of the timber I required for formwork to cast the reinforced concrete pillar.
    By coincidence my friend Mr. Lidl had reduced the cost of a small angle-grinder to £9-99  and as I had given my larger disc-cutter to one of my sons, largely because I could no longer pick it up let alone wield it in any purposeful way, I parted with the cash and now have an effective machine for cutting the reinforcement.  I have borrowed an arc welder from another son so I can weld the reinforcent together- excellent!.
    As a fair weather astronomer and sometime builder I'm awaiting a warm dry spell before putting the formwork and reinforcement together and mixing and casting the concrete (two pours). Looking out the window I guess this might be a while!
    Last night about 1.00am the sky over Lowestoft was dark and transparent. Jupiter was big and briight due south and most of the usual culprits for this time of year were visible through my handheld 11x80 mm. Helios biinoculars. I still could not find the comet lurking somewhere between the Great Bear and Hercules although I could easily see fuzzies of the same magnitude. I think I'm losing it!
     

  14. Hawksmoor
    The pier construction project for my 5 inch refractor is nearing completion. Today, I bolted the oak capping, the mild steel levelling plate and my NEQ6 Pro equatorial mount to the top of the reinforced concrete column.  All in all I think the project will have cost me about £120 for materials but I did have some of the stuff I needed already in my shed.  The weather, true to form, has suddenly turned grim - grey clouds horizon to horizon.  I guess this is my fault.
    Everything seems to have turned out alright so unless the earth crust folds under the imposed weight I should be imaging Jupiter very soon subject to jet stream and cloud cover.
    The fabrication-construction stages were as follows:
    Obtaining via the Internet the laser cut 6mm mild steel disc for making the levelling plate. Drilling it to take the  3 stainless steel threaded studs used to fix the levelling plate to the top of the concrete pier. Drilling it to enable my existing extension pillar/puck to be bolted to it. Cutting and welding reinforcing bar to create a reinforcement cage for the concrete pier. Choosing the best location and marking out for the pier. Drilling my existing concrete paving through into the concrete sub base ( i didn't want to dig the paving up for the pier foundation). Chem fixing shear studs and the bottom of the reinforcement cage into the concrete sub- base. Constructing the timber formwork for the pier. Casting the concrete in two pours. Removing the formwork after 14 days. Painting  the levelling plate using three coats of Hammerite. Making the timber pillar capping and eyepiece tray from some surplius oak kitchen worktop. Boltting and levelling the capping, levelling plate and NEQ6Pro to the top of the concrete pier. Now I can turn my shed endeavours towards Spectrometer Mk3.

     
  15. Hawksmoor

    Man Flu

    By Hawksmoor,

    Have been coughing and sneezing my way through February. When you add "am I feeling up to setting up my scope" to "are there clouds" to "is there too much moonlight" ?? Its all too easy to leave the scope in its box and rack up in front of the fire.
    Anyway, the 21st February presented a fine clear night and I enjoyed imaging the ‘king of planets’.

  16. Hawksmoor

    Mars

    By Hawksmoor,

    Last night was absolutely beautiful in Suffolk. There was a little high level cloud but otherwise it was quite perfect for backyard astronomy. I decided that I was going to take my first photos of Mars. I used the Logitech Webcam that I had previously cannabalised and took several AVI clips through my refractor using a 3x Barlow lens. I did not get any dark or flat frames which probably would have improved the results. I then processed the images using Registax, IRIS and Photoshop. Although the picture is a bit blurry and not in the same league as some of the images of Mars already on this Forum , I was quite surprised and pleased with the result.
    :)
  17. Hawksmoor
    Toot and I had a great time in Norwich last night. Dr Michael Foale CBE gave a talk about his life as an astronaut to a packed audience at the University of East Anglia. What an accomplished, kind and measured man. A couple of hours in his company passed very quickly. He has great interpersonal skills and although we only spoke to him very briefly, both my partner and I felt we had 'met him' rather than just 'heard him' speak. 
    What an exciting, if not at times scary, life and career he has had?
    Highlights include:
    a spacewalk to upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope's computer from a 386 to a 486 ( I had one of each but I only had to fetch them from Currys) stopping the MIR space station from spinning out of control after it had been hit by a supply vessel commanding the International Space Station There were many children in the audience who were very interested in space and science. Dr Foale encouraged them to do what they were good at, pursue their dreams and not to be deterred by setbacks.  He paid particular care to encourage girls to pursue careers in science and aerospace.
    He very kindly - let anyone who wanted to - have their photograph taken with him. A long queue of excited children formed down one side of the Lecture Hall.
    "Dr Foale, I could tell you that the photograph is for my grandchildren, but really its for me"  said a very excited and pleased old man.
    If you get a chance to hear him speak and/or go to events organised by ISSET or a 'Pint of Science'  - go for it!

  18. Hawksmoor
    Spent two early mornings, 4.00am to 7.00am, comet hunting. Second morning more successful, managing to get some images of a very small and faint Comet ISON and the bright planet Mercury with a tripod mounted DSLR. Second session more productive as I swapped the relative warmth of my sheltered backyard for the cold but improved eastern horizon of Lowestoft Seafront. I must say the beach was uncrowded at 4.30am. but oh my it was cold!!!.
    Why I didn't wear a thermal coat and hat I do not know, but hey that's the excitement of comets. It took me three hours, copious amounts of tea, a fried egg sandwich and a bath before I finally thawed out. Clearly my dear and accommodating wife thinks I've lost the plot.

  19. Hawksmoor
    Wasted a couple of hours this morning obtaining video clips of sunspots in white light through my scope. Finished taking the shots, all appeared well. Just got my kit put away before a rain shower. All accomplished before lunch, I thought. This afternoon, when I came to look for the files on my laptop, nowhere to be found! Must not have registered the files or some dumb trick best known to man and IT savants. I am a complete numpty!!!
  20. Hawksmoor
    Due to a flare up of arthritis in my back and hip have been unable to take advantage of the breaks in the clouds which have been infrequent to say the least. Have spent my time downloading images from the ESO archive and practicing the use of image processing software. Have managed to start using IRIS which appears to be the least accessible of the free image processing software I've tried to date. Quite humorous trying to follow the French - English translations.:)
  21. Hawksmoor
    Well I never got to photograph the Transit of Venus because of the awful weather which has continued almost unabated. However, after a day when we experienced a power outage because of a lightning strike, and torrential rain and hailstones, the clouds parted and by the time we went to bed and the street lights went out, the stars shone in astronomical twilight. Looking out our bedroom window, which faces north, Noctilucent Clouds were evident. Using my compact camera and leaning out the window, I was able to get a couple of rather grainy images.
    for more see http://george-artcab...om-windows.html
  22. Hawksmoor

    Nova in Delphinus

    By Hawksmoor,

    The evening of the 16th and the early hours of the 17th of August presented clear skies over our backyard and having read about the new Nova in the Constellation Delphinus, I decided to try and find it and photograph it with a tripod mounted DSLR. Even with the help of info from the Internet, finding the Nova amongst the rich fields of the Milky Way was a bit of a challenge. Hats off to the Japanese amateur astronomer, Koichi Itagaki, who discovered it!


  23. Hawksmoor
    You could have knocked me down with a feather, when at 1.00 am. yesterday my partner said "why dont we go down to the seafront and see if we can spot the Aurora".  So off we went in the family truckster with tripod and camera box in the back.  We were originally going to set up base camp at the UK's most easterly point but the lights from the Birdseye factory were a problem. We ended up on Corton Cliffs with a fine view North towards  Great Yarmouth and the offshore wind turbines. Well after an hour we had both convinced ourselves that there was a green auroral glow hugging the horizon. I took a number of 30 second images at ISO1600 with the aim of putting together a panorama using Microsoft ICE.  Well here it is believe it or not?
    The red glow is light pollution from Great Yarmouth - those 'Norfolk Boys' dont turn the lights off at midnight like us ECO warriors in Suffolk.
    We returned home for 3.00am and had some pea soup to warm up - nice.
     

  24. Hawksmoor
    The 26th of April turned out to be a nice clear night. It wasn't balmy out but on the other hand it was metallic simian cold! Winter was behind me and as I looked up at the waxing moon I noticed that Jupiter was much further west than it had been a few weeks before. I decided to capture my last Jovian images of the season and take a picture or two of the our old Moon. As a bonus I managed to get some video clips of Venus as it climbed above our house extension roof.
    I'm looking forward to seeing the summer constellations and the Milky Way arching over our backyard. As I get older I'm turning into a warm weather astronomer!
  25. Hawksmoor

    Oh! those Summer Projects

    By Hawksmoor,

    Feeling quite 'chipper' today!
    Many of my little 'summer' projects have been completed and seem to work. First - my bathroom extract system has been installed without me once falling off the ladder or putting my foot through the bathroom ceiling, second - I'm now producing tasty pizza and bread from my DIY wood-fired bread oven without upsetting my neighbours and third I've constructed four  battery powered 'dew zappers' for camera lenses and scope objectives. 
    The following is proof: - 'Dew zapper' on the Canon EFS 18-55mm lens worked for just over 2 hours, allowing star trails and a time-lapse movie to be made, and thus exceeding the design parameters for the heater and battery.
    Many thanks to Alan Sheehan B.E on IceInSpace for his excellent article and Excel Spreadsheet relating to building 'dew zappers'. Thanks to Alan I could concentrate on the difficult bits including burning my fingers with a soldering iron and 'wrinkling up' the duct tape.
    http://www.iceinspace.com.au/63-292-0-0-1-0.html



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