mcrowle

I’ve been trying to include some AP during my holidays for a number of years now, or at least until Covid put a halt to things.

Initially I’d limit myself to a few star trails and the odd landscape astro capture. A couple of times since, though, I’ve also taken a star tracker. In the future I plan to do more AP on my travels, weather-permitting of course. In fact I’ve now booked my first post-Covid holiday, to the Dolomites, around a New Moon.

So far, over several years, I’ve done at least some AP in 2 Swiss Alps locations (Saas Fee and Kandersteg), the Azores, Tenerife and Kranjska Gora in Slovenia, taking the star tracker only to Kandersteg and Tenerife. I’ve also used stays at ski resorts in Finland to photograph aurorae. As well as Tenerife, which was a landscape astrophotography workshop, Saas Fee was particularly successful as 6 nights out of 7 were clear. I’m not sure how typical that is, but apparently it benefits from a rain shadow effect from several directions due to the surrounding mountains!

I don’t drive, but as I’m often staying in small settlements, such as out-of-season ski resorts, I just walk a short way along local footpaths to locations that I’ve scouted in daylight. Tenerife was the exception, but it was a group workshop, with Alyn Wallace, so we travelled together by minibus.

Regards, Mike.

3 hours ago, mcrowle said:

However, luckily C/2022 U2 is likely rather brighter, at mag. 11...

Sorry, I had rather rushed my earlier post and it's a bit ambiguous. I meant that Comet C/2022 U2 ATLAS is perhaps brighter than predicted, not brighter than C/2022 E3 ZTF, which is nearby.

Regards, Mike.

I looked out after my post and found a lot of cirrus cloud, as well as the full moon of course. I think E3 ZTF at around mag. 6 would be difficult enough in those conditions, never mind U2 ATLAS at mag. 11 or 12!

Regards, Mike.

I've just posted similarly in another thread but you may like to know that C/2022 U2 is likely rather brighter, at mag. 11 according to the BAA page at BAA Comet section (cam.ac.uk). I successfully imaged and viewed it in late Jan, despite strong light pollution from the local football club floodlights! 😊

Regards, Mike.

2 hours ago, scotty1 said:

Comet E3 appears near Comet U2 atlas now , if you have the dark sky and equipment as Comet C/2022 U2 atlas is Mag 16. 

Will be interesting to see if anyone captures this pairing! I've only just read about it, and wasn't planning to set up due to the full moon to be honest.

However, luckily C/2022 U2 is likely rather brighter, at mag. 11 according to the BAA page at BAA Comet section (cam.ac.uk). I successfully imaged and viewed it in late Jan, despite strong light pollution from the local football club floodlights! 😊

Regards, Mike.

I'm not expecting an APOD for this image, but thought I'd post anyway as I was pleased to get anything given the conditions  .

Consulting Heavens-above.com I realised that Comet C/2022 U2 ATLAS would be near an easily-recognisable asterism in Camelopardalis on Tuesday evening. However, looking out at 7pm I found that the local football club had their floodlights on for an evening match. Though the ground is only 50 yards away I decided to press on anyway and set up the 12" Newt. It was only when the lights went out at 10pm that I could see that the sky transparency was also rather poor.

Here's the result, composed of  just 11 x 1-minute exposures at ISO 1600, taken while the football lights were on (as later the comet was no longer visible from my observing position).

Regards, Mike.

In the hope of capturing a greater extent of the comet's tails, I then imaged Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) with a Sky-Watcher ED 80mm 'scope.

Not sure it really adds anything, though, as little of the ion tail is visible. Anyway, this was 13 x 3-min auto-guided exposures at ISO 3200, stacked and processed as before.

Regards, Mike.

Thursday into Friday was my first clear night of 2023, but due to an early start for work I left the comets for the early hours of Saturday morning which were also expected to be clear.

I targeted Comet C/2022 A2 PanSTARRS first, as I'd not seen it before and wanted to add it to my list  . It was easily located in Draco, with reference to the chart on Heavens-above.com, via my 300mm Newtonian. I swapped the eyepiece for the camera and ended up with 16 x 1-minute unguided exposures at ISO 3200, after deleting those spoilt by periodic error.

While those frames were being taken, I located C/2022 E3 ZTF between Hercules and Ursa Major using 7x50 binocs. For this comet I obtained 22 x 1-minute exposures.

Later on Saturday I stacked on the comets in Deep Sky Stacker, and processed the results in the Canon RAW software and Cyberlink PhotoDirector.  In due course I may also stack them for both the comets and the stars, though I've had mixed results with that in the past and I do like the way stacking just on the comet shows its movement against the star background.

Regards, Mike

C/2022 A2 PanSTARRS:

C/2022 E3 ZTF:

If you get another clear morning soon, C/2022 A2 (PANSTARRS) is currently estimated to be mag. 9.5 and is in Draco, not far from C/2022 E3 (ZTF).

I've not seen it yet, but I'm hoping to target it before long - cloud-permitting! Looking forward to having another look at C/2022 E3 (ZTF) too.

Regards, Mike.

Comets are my favourite subjects, so hopefully 2022 E3 ZTF (again) and 2022 A2 PanSTARRS (for the first time). Also, if given clear skies, no doubt some deep sky imaging in the Orion/Monoceros area before it disappears behind the neighbour's house and then on to some early 'Galaxy Season' subjects.

Having said all that, like others I'm not wildly optimistic about the chance of clear skies over the next few weeks, given what the last months have been like!

Regards, Mike.

No, I haven't thought of setting up a meteor camera to be honest. Maybe it's something I should look into!

Best regards, Mike.

I was out preparing to image Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) from about 2am until 3:30 on Christmas Eve and I'm quite sure I saw this fireball. It was pale green, with multiple bursts, just to the southeast of my zenith. The brightest meteor I've seen for a few years. Unfortunately I didn't note the time, but it does sound about right.

As it happened, it clouded up before E3 (ZTF) cleared the valley side where I live. In the meantime I did get some image data on M51, but it was worth being out just for that fireball! I did capture the comet two mornings later.

Regards, Mike.

Of mine, no one image stands out particularly, though I was quite pleased with this Heart Nebula capture (despite the inevitable coma and tilt issues).

2022 was significant in 2 imaging respects, though, as I finally took up autoguiding after decades of guiding manually and obtained my first good planet image using the 12" Newtonian that I've owned for 10 years.

Regards, and happy New Year, Mike.

A delivery Friday afternoon from Auntie FLO via DPD: an Orion Dynamo Pro power pack to power my mount and laptop, and a Sky-Watcher EvoGuide 50ED that I plan to use for autoguiding my 12" Newtonian.

Re. the latter, I've used an off-axis guider to guide (manually) with the Newt for the last decade - but more often than not I gave up trying to find a guide star and instead resorted to unguided short exposures! Hopefully the guide scope (and an existing ZWO camera) will be a better alternative, though I've not tried it yet.

Regards, and happy New Year! Mike

Superb capture, Paul! I imaged it too, around 5am, but didn't have the ion tail showing up so well.

Regards, Mike.

Yes, true the C8 is a bit over-the-top as a guider 😁.

To be honest I've only started auto-guiding this year, after 4 decades of manual guiding. I suppose I didn't think to remove the unnecessary diagonal as I always used one for comfort while guiding manually.

Regards, Mike.

15 minutes ago, Vroobel said:

Hi, 

Sorry for an offtop, could you tell me - all guys who use diagonals during the astrophotography - why you do it? Every additional piece of glass in the path brings unwanted distortion and loss of light. If you need the optical length to focus, I suggest use of proper extension instead. Correct me please, if I'm wrong. 🤔

If you mean me, in the pic I'm imaging with the piggybacked lens and guiding with the C8. Yes, the C8 has a diagonal here, but I've never used one in the imaging train.

Regards, Mike.

Not many clear nights recently, but here's my 32-year old Celestron C8, piggybacking an astro-modded Canon 600D and Canon 70-300mm lens to image part of Auriga last night.

Regards, Mike.

I have a diverse collection of 5 ‘scopes, obtained over many years, though nothing particularly exotic or ‘high end’:

• Celestron SP-C8, bought 31 years ago, now used mostly to piggyback camera lenses or the 80mm refractor for imaging. I still have its Super Polaris mount, though I now use a Losmandy G11.
• Meade 127mm ED refractor, bought at an offer price in 2009, my favourite for the quality of the views and images obtained.
• Sky Watcher Equinox ED 80mm, bought about 6 years ago for imaging - for which I piggyback it on the C8.
• Revelation (GSO) 300mm f/4 Newtonian, bought 10 years ago, my most used due to its fast optics, but also my most frustrating - it’s never demonstrated the high resolution visually or photographically you’d expect from an instrument with its aperture.
• Coronado SolarMax 40mm H-alpha ‘scope, won in a prize draw about 12 years ago and used less than it ought to be.

I have no plans to obtain any more 😄.

Regards, Mike.

I didn't expect to see anything this morning, with overcast conditions expected in the morning and heavy rain in the afternoon.

However, there were some brief gaps in the cloud - not enough to persuade me to set up the Ha scope, but I did grab my eclipse glasses and was rewarded with a great view for a few seconds around 10:50am. I hadn't checked, but I imagine that must have been close to the maximum, as a sizeable section of the Sun was hidden.

Regards, Mike.

I'm seeing a major contrast between observing opportunities this September and October. I was able to take advantage of 10 clear nights in September, which was wonderful of course!

Due to accumulated annual leave I've taken the whole of October off work, but, predictably, there has been no clear nights so far, and little prospect for the last week of the month either (Clear Outside is a clean sweep of red)! Hope others are having a more useful month  .

Regards, Mike.

Not so sure now about the Atlas Air 747 transporting the rocket: according to the Cornwall Live website it was delivered via C17 military transport that same morning. No doubt the Atlas Air flight was Spaceport-related, though, as Newquay doesn't normally see services via 747 from Los Angeles 😃.

Regards, Mike.

I grabbed some photos of 'Cosmic Girl', carrying out a test flight, from my bedroom window this afternoon.

I had hoped to photograph her arrival, as I'm under the usual Newquay flightpath, but she approached from the North instead and didn't fly over much of Cornwall on that occasion.

The 3rd photo is the Atlas Air 747 that delivered the rocket to Spaceport Cornwall this afternoon.

Regards, Mike.

1 hour ago, dark knight said:

I actually really like that first one Mike, so nice to have those rocks in the foreground,  great framing.

Thanks, Carl.

I think I was less happy with the first image because of the extra adjustments and compromises I'd made. It was the first time I'd used the 14mm on the full frame camera. I had to close the aperture down to f/5.6, to reduce vignetting, and to increase the ISO further than I'd like - so that meant extra noise reduction in post processing. Even with the aperture shut down, the distortion was awful and I lost most of the foreground interest while correcting it! 🤣 Still, I suppose it's not tooooooo bad.

September was a strange month here in Cornwall, with much local variation.

I was lucky enough to be able to image at home in mid-Cornwall on 10 nights, which must be something of a record for me. However a friend and colleague in West Cornwall, who specialises in landscape astrophotography, never had a suitable night over the same period. As the crow flies our locations are only 21 miles apart.

Regards, Mike.