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What projects do you have on the boil?

RichieJarvis

By RichieJarvis
in The Astro Lounge

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RichieJarvis

RichieJarvis

Posted
Posted

Hi All,

I am really looking for inspiration here. Looking at the quality of images coming out really, it seems to me that my current regime of 'one nighter images' to get results is not going to cut it anymore.

What suitable projects would you suggest? What have you got on the back-burner (if your willing to share!)

Thanks,

Richie

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Merlin66

Merlin66

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I'm still "calibrating" a Littrow spectroscope in the hope that clearer weather will allow me to get more experience with it under the stars.

There's also a set of Photometric filters sitting in the filter wheel waiting to be tried out on variable stars.

The ofcourse there's the double stacked SM60, just waiting on some sunshine!!!

In the meantime I'm finishing the addition of needle bearings to the Dec axis of the 10" and 12" LX200's

That's probably enough.

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Whippy

Whippy

Posted
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I am really looking for inspiration here. Looking at the quality of images coming out really, it seems to me that my current regime of 'one nighter images' to get results is not going to cut it anymore.

I came to that conclusion too Richie so now I'm planning on maybe two or three evenings to get some longer exposure times so hopefully I can obtain a bit of depth to my images. Quality rather than quantity is the phrase I'm thinking of.

Other than that, I really should build that light box I keep threatening to do and once I get my observing setup sorted, I'm looking at maybe a couple of Orthoscopic EP's for some planetary/lunar goodness.

Tony..

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Astro_Baby

Astro_Baby

Posted
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I have a fan project going on my 200 but at the moment its not really going as I keep getting distracted.

As its too cold to be out right now and the weathers lousy I am about to embark on stripping down the HEQ5 and rebuiling it and writing a guide on how to do it to make it easier for other numpties like me :(

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Doc

Doc

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Quicker to say what projects I haven't got. problem with me I get distracted.

1. A power box with a deep cycle battery and 12v outputs for when I observe at a dark site.

2. A barn door for tracking stars.

3. A wedge to go between barn door and TAL tripod.

4. Adapt my Azimuth encoder to my dob base so I have digital readout to find those elusive objects.

5. A laptop platform for the dob so I can have the laptop running a planetarium program.

Thats about it.

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MartinB

MartinB

Posted
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Planning stages for an observatory hopefully for completion this year.

I got some data on M51 a couple of months ago and would like to add to it. Still waiting for the opportunity. When I have to obsy sorted I should be much more productive but rather will probably build up data on a narrow band target for when the moon is up, wide field for poor seeing and long focal length when things are steady, or get binned colour data. Over the last year I have averaged one properly clear night once every 2 months. Not good.

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CELESCOPE

CELESCOPE

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Well i have a lovely Obs setup , so taking just one image in one evening works out a treat in comfort, but now i,m looking to go west young man or east or south , i need to aquire those objects that i cant get from my Obs , so it means going mobile so i,m inthe process of doing that ,

watch this space for some newer images

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AndyH

AndyH

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I'm currently planning to kidnap and hold to ransom Jack Frost, who, as we all know(if you've read Rupert the Bear), runs the weather. Hopefully I can persuade his superiors to turn the dial to clear.

Andy

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Tim

Tim

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Richie, if you want a REAL challenge, do a google images search for "Integrated flux", and check out the m81 region. Now thats a tough cookie. So far 14 hours have revealed practically nothing on it..........not sure when to chuck the towel in!

What about a messier catalogue? My next long exposure run will be on Markarians chain I think.

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narrowbandpaul

narrowbandpaul

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Posted

is your Littrow spectrometer the LHiRes III...we have used this on the sun. Works a treat.

Does require lots of fiddling though....but we did calibrate it.

My projects include....

learning all I can about CCD's, and then CMOS imagers

getting a good hi res crab in nb colour

want to characterise as fully as possible the H16, for high accuracy photometry and spectroheliography

thats about it...

oh, and a degree

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DaveS

DaveS

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Nothing so advanced for me yet! just getting re-aquainted with the subject, so bringing myself up to speed with digital astro photography, getting my camera tracker back in commission and building a new one. A 300 f/4 L (S/H) is in there somewhere if I can find the cash.

I can't see my situation permitting of any real scientific research, so I may have to accept that I'm just in this for "fun".

Dave

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DaveS

DaveS

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I've built a couple of simple spectroscopes myself in the past, one with a grating, one with 2 dense flint prisms though not a litrow one,

I did, however design one from scratch, even built some components, but never took it to completion.

Incidentally a 600 mm-1 grating on the hypotenuse of a 90o acrylic prism will give direct vision for the sodium D lines.

Amateur Astronomer's handbook (Sidgwick) has loads of info on the subject, including the basics of spectroheliographs / scopes

How big a grating did you use/

Dave

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narrowbandpaul

narrowbandpaul

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dont know the size of our grating..but L/dL= Nm.....where l= wavelength, dL=minimum resolvable separation. N= total number of lines m= order of spectrum....1

0.095A at 6563nm implies N=69000...so size =N/2400...=28.8mm

that resolution is fab isnt it.

we have a watec 120n, wonder what res that would give!

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TheThing

TheThing

Posted
Posted

Currently, two eggs for breakfast!

Seriously though, I'm getting heavily obsessed by lunar observing. I'm planning to take afocal images with my hand held Nikon Coolpix of as many phases of the moon as I can. Just for fun...

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