Deep sky imaging on a south Pacific island

[wimvb]

29 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

For one thing you do need the LMC to be above the horizon!!! 

Olly

That would certainly help. 

[gorann]

15 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

The LMC is gorgeous! Such colour and luminosity.

Olly

Thanks a lot Olly, you are too nice!

[gorann]

14 hours ago, wimvb said:

It really is. And considering that this was captured with a photographic lens and a Star adventurer. Astrophotography is as real estate, about three things: location, location, and location. 

Thanks a lot Wim!

And with a OSC camera..... Apparently that is all you need under a perfectly dark sky. The telephoto lens does not shine when it comes to the shapes of particularly smaller stars, and the smallest stars are also often affected by a bit star trailing as expected from 90 s unguided. I try to fix it as much as possible in processing, but pixel peepers would have some issues with them. It is probably not easy to see in the images I post here since I need to downsize them to 1/3 of the original resolution, so from about 4900 x 3300 pixels to 3000 x 2000 pixels, to have a chance to upload them. It still takes 15 - 30 min for an image to upload. The internet here is connected to the mainland with an antenna, not even a dish.

Edited December 29, 2019 by gorann

[gorann]

14 hours ago, Mr Spock said:

Outstanding images. Especially from travel kit! 

Those dark skies though... jealous much.

Thanks a lot Michael!

[don4l]

What an enjoyable thread.

Hoping you get plenty more clear skies!  The images are gorgeous, and the island looks lovely.

[gorann]

1 minute ago, don4l said:

What an enjoyable thread.

Hoping you get plenty more clear skies!  The images are gorgeous, and the island looks lovely.

Yes Don, it is lovely here indeed, and I hope for some more clear nights before I leave next Saturday😪

[wimvb]

23 minutes ago, gorann said:

Yes Don, it is lovely here indeed, and I hope for some more clear nights before I leave next Saturday😪

Maybe you should apply for a grant to build a research station with a roll off roof. 

30 minutes ago, gorann said:

It still takes 15 - 30 min for an image to upload. The internet here is connected to the mainland with an antenna, not even a dish.

If Musk gets what he wants, that problem got be solved next time you visit the island.

[gorann]

I just spent a bit more time on processing my accidental snap shot from early on Christmas Eve. My first processing was mainly to see what I had been aiming at, and I promise that the inclusion of the Christmas Tree Cluster was pure coincidence. Another noatble thing in there is the Dreyer's Nebula in the upper left corner. The major area of red nebulosity or the stiking yellow star cluster are not given any designated names or numbers by platesolving in Astrobin, which I find a bit odd.

So here it is agan, not too bad for 38 x 90s = 57minutes of exposure😉

Edited December 29, 2019 by gorann

[gorann]

I have not had any new data for a few days here due to clouds (and X-mas party and Saturday BBQ), but luck may be changing tonight. It is 0130 here and I am shooting off at a panel south of the Eta Carina nebula that includes the Statue of Liberty Nebula, so a small mosaic project again. Right now it is largely clear skies but the weather report talks about rain so this may be a late night sleepless night for me. I have built a small rain shield for the setup but I do not trust it fully since rain often comes with a bit of wind here and my construction may just blow away, so I probably just need to stay awake until it lightens up again around 0500.....🥴

[laser_jock99]

On 22/12/2019 at 01:22, gorann said:

A week ago I arrived at Lizard Island (14°27 S, 145° 27´E) for research on their marine biological station until early January. It must be one of the darkest places on earth. Lizard Island is situated on the Great Barrier Reef about 20 km off the Australian coast and this far north in Queensland there are very few human inhabitants on the mainland and no light can be seen there from here. Closest town is Cairns 200 km to the south.

 

Great post- I'm enjoying the pictures so far!

I'm curious if you can see any light pollution from the Cape Flattery Silica Mine ? It's about 20km due south of Lizard Island. 

 

[gorann]

5 hours ago, laser_jock99 said:

Great post- I'm enjoying the pictures so far!

I'm curious if you can see any light pollution from the Cape Flattery Silica Mine ? It's about 20km due south of Lizard Island. 

 

Thanks!

You seem to know the area well. The answer is probably not, but I could have another look  tonight when we will celebrate New Year on the beach and I will have a clear southern horizon to look at. Cape Flattery is not straight south but more SSW and I see those mines every time we fly up here. They are clearly expanding year from year but probably not using that much light, and it would be very low on the horizon. Where I have my rig there are a few bushes at the SSW horizon. A bit of light pollution comes from the lighthouse on Palfrey Island about a km away from where I put up my litte rig, but it is not a constant light - just occasional flashes.

Edited December 31, 2019 by gorann

[gorann]

The last two nights I managed to catch panels to the south (including the Statue of Liberty nebula) and north of Eta Carina in order to make a three panel mosaic. Not the easiest endevour with a Star Adventurer mount. So no fancy platesolving software helping me out. Also PI refused to  put them together, saying it could not find matching stars, so I had to do it manually in PI. Here is a preliminary version just to show you that I am still alive and kicking down here. It is downsized to about 1/3 of the original but I am sure it will still take half-an-hour to upload. Now I will make a little astroimage show to show before midnight on a screen on the beach, where I and the other inhabitatnts of the station will wait for the new year to come.

Happy New year to you all!

Göran

[wimvb]

Great mosaic, Göran. 

Gott nytt år tiil dig och Sjannie. 

[Laurin Dave]

Very nice Goran and Happy New Year to you too

Dave

[geoflewis]

I saw the start of this thread last week, but since then have been mostly too busy for SGL, or indeed much astro at all. Really glad that I found this again as it is a brilliant thread, stuffed with superb images. What a great read....👍

Cheers and Happy New Year

Edited December 31, 2019 by geoflewis

[petevasey]

Well done indeed Goran.  Thank you for sharing. And pretty lucky with the weather - on the two occasions I've been far South, it's been the opposite - cloudy almost every night.  The best opportunity was the Cradle Mountain nature reserve in Tasmania.  Very dark, and we had beautiful sunny days every day, but as soon as the Sun went down the fog arrived.  😡

Cheers, and a Happy New Year

Peter

[gorann]

14 hours ago, wimvb said:

Great mosaic, Göran. 

Gott nytt år tiil dig och Sjannie. 

 

14 hours ago, Laurin Dave said:

Very nice Goran and Happy New Year to you too

Dave

 

14 hours ago, geoflewis said:

I saw the start of this thread last week, but since then have been mostly too busy for SGL, or indeed much astro at all. Really glad that I found this again as it is a brilliant thread, stuffed with superb images. What a great read....👍

Cheers and Happy New Year

Thank you all!

Last night was perfectly clear but it was New Years Eve so I had to give AP a miss 🙄and instead just enjoy the sky together with my wife and the small crowd of people here at the station right now🥂. We bruned up a whole buch of expired emergency flares at midnight - quite spectacular🎇.

[gorann]

12 hours ago, petevasey said:

Well done indeed Goran.  Thank you for sharing. And pretty lucky with the weather - on the two occasions I've been far South, it's been the opposite - cloudy almost every night.  The best opportunity was the Cradle Mountain nature reserve in Tasmania.  Very dark, and we had beautiful sunny days every day, but as soon as the Sun went down the fog arrived.  😡

Cheers, and a Happy New Year

Peter

Thanks Peter!

I have not seen any fog here. The rainy season is supposed to have started, but fortunately it is a bit late this year. I think that I have had 9 clear nights during the 16 days I have been here now, so really quite good, and I devoted 7 of those to AP and 2 of them to X-mas and New Year celebrations. Tonight looks relatively promising so there could still be one more image to bag but then clouds and rain are forcasted for the last few days here🙄. On Saturday it is time to head back to northern Europe for the galaxy season

[gorann]

Managed to bag the Bogeyman Nebula (LN1622) last night. It is up by Orion and the red nebulosity to the right is part of Barnard's loop. I fired away at it all night but had to throw away quite a bit due to clouds, but ended up with 185 x 90s, so about 4.6 hours. Had to do a flip at 0100 and reframe - a bit of a fiddle with a mount without any computer control.

Never imaged this one before even if it may be possible from back home, but then it will defenitively not be straight up in the sky. I had decided that this should be the last one here, but now it looks like I may get one more clear night before I leave......

 

Edited January 2, 2020 by gorann

[petevasey]

Yet another cracking image, Göran.  thank you for sharing.   For interest, maybe yours and others, I've uploaded a Google Earth light pollution overlay for Oceania, including Australia, New Zealand and much of the Far East.  Could be useful for anyone planning Astro trips. I hope it's accessible.  I'll check once I've posted this and if it hasn't worked, I'll put it on my web site.  Edit : Yes, checked and it worked 😀

I hope you managed to get your research done with all those late nights 😉  You've certainly lifted the bar for the Star Adventurer.  I have one, but so far only used it in real anger for Solar Eclipses.  A great travel mount.  For the Solar images, I used my Canon 700D and 400L f5.6 lens, but of course I could also use autofocus.  I have a dingus for fine focusing - a couple of rings which clip onto the lens, one on the focus ring, one on the lens body with a fine adjustment linking the two.  But it's very awkward to set up.  I really like your Heath Robinson system - innovative and oh so simple!  I hope you don't mind if I pinch the idea!

Cheers and a Happy New Year

Peter

Oceania Artificial Night Sky Brighness.kmz

Edited January 2, 2020 by petevasey
Added text

[gorann]

13 hours ago, petevasey said:

Yet another cracking image, Göran.  thank you for sharing.   For interest, maybe yours and others, I've uploaded a Google Earth light pollution overlay for Oceania, including Australia, New Zealand and much of the Far East.  Could be useful for anyone planning Astro trips. I hope it's accessible.  I'll check once I've posted this and if it hasn't worked, I'll put it on my web site.  Edit : Yes, checked and it worked 😀

I hope you managed to get your research done with all those late nights 😉  You've certainly lifted the bar for the Star Adventurer.  I have one, but so far only used it in real anger for Solar Eclipses.  A great travel mount.  For the Solar images, I used my Canon 700D and 400L f5.6 lens, but of course I could also use autofocus.  I have a dingus for fine focusing - a couple of rings which clip onto the lens, one on the focus ring, one on the lens body with a fine adjustment linking the two.  But it's very awkward to set up.  I really like your Heath Robinson system - innovative and oh so simple!  I hope you don't mind if I pinch the idea!

Cheers and a Happy New Year

Peter

Oceania Artificial Night Sky Brighness.kmz 1.05 MB · 5 downloads

Thanks a lot Peter!

Yes I bought one of those double rings for fine focusing from TS. They work but as you say are very clumpsy, so I left them at home. Please use my idea - has worked perfectly here with no out of focus subs at all. It both provides fine adjustment and fixes the focusing ring. Your Canon lens must be very similar to mine so maybe you can also use one of the screws on that label-plate. Otherwise it may work with just rubberbands in both ends of the rod.

PS. And yes we got some results on temperture tolerance in jumping snails too

Edited January 2, 2020 by gorann

[gorann]

Last night was cloudy so the Bogeyman Nebula became the final AP image from this trip to paradise. I instead post an image showing how we celebrate X-mas on Lizard Island Research Station - we take traditions very seriously!

[petevasey]

14 hours ago, gorann said:

Thanks a lot Peter!

Yes I bought one of those double rings for fine focusing from TS. They work but as you say are very clumpsy, so I left them at home. Please use my idea - has worked perfectly here with no out of focus subs at all. It both provides fine adjustment and fixes the focusing ring. Your Canon lens must be very similar to mine so maybe you can also use one of the screws on that label-plate. Otherwise it may work with just rubberbands in both ends of the rod.

PS. And yes we got some results on temperture tolerance in jumping snails too

Thanks, Goran, yes my 400L has a screwed label.  But a different layout to yours.  Experimentation needed! Seems you had a multi successful trip including a blue (water) Christmas 😉

Will you be presenting your findings at the  Experimental Biology meeting in Valencia in July?

Cheers,

Peter

[gorann]

8 hours ago, petevasey said:

Thanks, Goran, yes my 400L has a screwed label.  But a different layout to yours.  Experimentation needed! Seems you had a multi successful trip including a blue (water) Christmas 😉

Will you be presenting your findings at the  Experimental Biology meeting in Valencia in July?

Cheers,

Peter

Hi Peter

do you mean the Society for Experimental Biology meeting in Prague? I usually go to those but probably not this year - too many other meetings this summer. Are you a biologist too?

[petevasey]

1 hour ago, gorann said:

Hi Peter

do you mean the Society for Experimental Biology meeting in Prague? I usually go to those but probably not this year - too many other meetings this summer. Are you a biologist too?

Hi, Göran,

 

No I'm not a biologist - an engineer by profession, long retired!  Just did a bit of browsing about jumping snails.    Fascinating creatures!  And I came across this page which as you will see mentions the society meeting in Valencia.  But now that I look at it more closely I see it's dated 2013.  Oops!  Those snails of yours seem to be pretty robust creatures - I hope your and other research leads to ways to protect the flora and fauna of the Great Barrier Reef from the effects of global warming..

Cheers,

Peter