A few images from the Kielder Star Party

[Paxo]

This was the first chance to try out the Pentax 75 refractor I bought last November with the SX H36 camera. This was a chance to mess around with a few custom adapters I've recently made. I hve been impressed with the flatfield from the P75 straight out of the box, and the optics are superb.

Differing conditions encountered at Kielder, for 2 of the 3 clear nights, early evening was subject to bands of cloud passing the area from the North, clearing totally by 1am, the other night being totally clear.

First image was of the Rosette Nebula, I took LRGB data for this but there seem to be problems processing the Blue channel, so here's the luminance only:

Lights: 15 @ 300 secs

Darks: 36

Flats: 36

Bias: 36

Followed this later that evening with Markarian's chain:

This was completed in LRGB with all channels with 10x300secs.

Missed a significant portion of the next clear evening but managed to get a lot of calibration data I missed on the first evening.

Saturday Night was a lot of passing cloud early on, early evening so went for something to the clearer area of the SW so to test the field of view, my first shot (In luminance only) was the area around the Flame and Horsehead nebulas:

To show th ability of the H36, here's a crop from this image:

The rest of the evening was taken up with some Luminance only subs of a couple of further targets:

M44

and finally a widefield of the Leo Triplet:

All in all, a relatively successful return to imaging after a long lay off (Autumn Kelling last year), everything worked well and I am extremely happy with the quality of the images from the Pentax 75 and H36 combo.

Thanks for looking

Steve..

[AndyH]

Nice........................real nice.

Andy.

[James]

Crikey, that's a huge field.... glad to hear you had some clear nights at Kielder

James

[Whippy]

Superb amigo , nice to see you back in the saddle after such a long layoff. IIRC, my Marakrian's chain effort was a 4 pane mosaic!

Tony..

[Starflyer]

Cracking images Steve, glad to hear you had some clear skies

[beamish]

Only one word for those Steve OUTSTANDING !!!

[Paxo]

Just done this analysis of the flatfield with CCDInspector, graphic below shows a very flat field onto the CCD.

Steve..

[Whippy]

You're not going to get much flatter than that are you!

Tony..

[brantuk]

Smashing pics - I especially like the rosette, horse head, and triplet - but only cos they're some of my favourites. Wtg

[Beyond_Vision]

Nice to see you back in the saddle again Steve. I really like the Rosette and the HH they look great in the widefield context. Looks like there is a problem with the blue channel in the Markarians chain.

The H36 and Pentax is giving a great FOV with very nice stars to the corners.

Regards

Kevin

[steppenwolf]

Some really great wide fields there, Steve - you obviously had a great time!

[barkis]

I don't think that scope will ever be prized from you Steve, those are outstanding images. And It is good to see you posting stuff again.

Ron.

[Paxo]

Thanks for the kind comments folks, it's greatly appreciated.

Added the colour data for Rosette:

and done a rework of Markarian's Chain (Thanks Kev for pointing out the Blue Channel Problem - sorted now!)

Steve..

[mikeyscope]

An excellent selection of images there Steve, that Pentax is a fine piece of glass!

Mike

[Dixie]

Steve

Can I use these pictures on the star camp website?

Stunning stuff.

Every night at Kielder was largely clear apart form the last. But we were too tired to bother by then with even Mikeyscope hitting the larger (well, one pint!)

Richard

[Paxo]

Richard,

Please feel free to use the images as you wish on the star camp website. When we departed (shortly after speaking to you) on the Sunday, it did look as if the Sunday night might have promise, but it soon clouded over as we drove th 60 miles home. Still, the whole event was another unprecedented success IMO, see you again next year.

Steve..

[Tim]

Nice to see you with some piccies Steve, I know you've been busy, good to take a bit of time out Glad you had some skies to use, looks like you put them to good use!

[Dixie]

Thanks, Steve,

Richard