Swansea Astronomical Society Blog
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
M13 with a modified Samsung SDC-435 camera and an f/5 150mm Newtonian, Jupiter, the Moon and the Sun
The SDC-453 camera was fitted with a light pollution filter and the AGC was set to LOW.
15min of DVD were captured. The BMPs were extracted from the DVD VOB files, and stacked in Registax. The dark-frame used was corrected by Andrew Sprott's Dark Frame Scaler:
M13
I used a DMK21AS camera at the Prime focus of the 150mm Newtonian and imaged the terminator and most of the Moon. This is a mosaic of 5 images. With a little more care, I could have imaged the whole thing. Remember to click on the image to obtain a larger view:
Jupiter was imaged with the monochrome DMK21AS camera through a 3x Barlow with RGB colour filters and a colour image rendered in Andrew Sprott's CAP software:
The Sun was imaged in H-alpha light and Ca K-line light with the DMK and PST scopes. AR1101 and 1102 can be seen in the images:
H-alpha light:
Ca K-line light:
Steve Wainwright
The Sun and Jupiter
These images were taken through an 80mm Skywatcher refractor
29/08/2010
Jupiter
30/08/2010
Active regions AR1101 & 1102
The scope was fitted with a Baader solar filter
This image was taken with a DBK camera and a H-alpha PST
Keith Davies
29/08/2010
Jupiter
30/08/2010
Active regions AR1101 & 1102
The scope was fitted with a Baader solar filter
This image was taken with a DBK camera and a H-alpha PST
Keith Davies
Monday, August 30, 2010
M82 and the Moon with an 11" SCT
I used the Samsung SDC-435 camera with a light pollution filter and the 11" SCT with a 6.3 focal reducer. I captured 244 frames to DVD, extracted them with VOB File Extractor and stacked them in Registax using a dark-frame corrected with Dark Frame Scaler.
I then used the DMK21AS camera fitted with an IR/UV cut filter at the prime focus of the SCT to image the Moon:
M82
I then used the DMK21AS camera fitted with an IR/UV cut filter at the prime focus of the SCT to image the Moon:
The seeing was poor and this image is a stack of 250 frames out of a total of 8000 frames.
Steve Wainwright
Saturday, August 28, 2010
M13 with a Mintron and a KSON Apo refractor on an EQ4 mount
Last night the Mintron and Kson refractor produced this image of M13, the great globular cluster in Hercules, from 40 captured unique frames:
Wayne Jones
Wayne Jones
Ar1101 on 27/08/2010 with a DSLR and a 130mm Newtonian
On Friday 27th a Sony DSLR was connected to a 130mm Newtonian fitted with a Baader solar filter. Sunspot AR1101 was imaged. Remember to click on the images to get a bigger view:
Wayne Jones
AR1101
Wayne Jones
The Moon with a DMK and an 11" SCT under atrocious seeing conditions
The seeing conditions were very bad tonight (27/08/2010) so 7000 frames were captured per image and about 10% of them were stacked to produce these images. The first is a mosaic made in iMerge from 3 separate images. A 0.5 focal reducer was used to capture these images:
Without a focal reducer this image was captured of crater Gassendi:
Steve Wainwright
Friday, August 27, 2010
Prominences and AR1101 in H-alpha and Ca K-line light
I used a DMK21AS camera fitted with the lens assembly from a x2 Barlow on a H-alpha PST. Data were captured that were exposed correctly for the disk and data captured that were exposed correctly for the prominences. The two resulting images were combined in Andrew Sprott's Solar Layers software.
AR1101:
The same camera setup was used on a Ca K-line PST to image AR1101:
Steve Wainwright
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Jupiter with a Skywatcher 4" refractor
On Tuesday 24th August a DBK21AS camera was placed on a Skywatcher 4" refractor with a 2.5x Barlow. The scope was on an EQ3 Synscan mount.
Jupiter
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Keith Davies
Jupiter
.jpg)
Keith Davies
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Jupiter and other objects with an 11" SCT, an 80mm refractor and various cameras
The full Moon was captured with the Sweex webcam and an f/5 80mm refractor mounted on the Merlin mount. The driver for this camera proved completely inadequate for imaging Jupiter later on as it was unable to hold the manually controlled settings:
I used the 11" SCT and a VGear webcam with a UV/IR cut filter and a lens assembly from a x2 Barlow lens:
Some ringing is evident in the image and the shadow of a moon is visible on the surface of the planet. In this image and on one below, the shadow of Io can be seen on the planet.
Io (on the left) and its shadow on the planet and also Ganymede(on the right) can be seen in this image
This is a mosaic of two images combined in iMerge:
Under the full Moon while waiting for Jupiter to rise above the trees I used the Samsung SDC-435 video camera to capture this image of M57:
I used the 11" SCT and a VGear webcam with a UV/IR cut filter and a lens assembly from a x2 Barlow lens:
Some ringing is evident in the image and the shadow of a moon is visible on the surface of the planet. In this image and on one below, the shadow of Io can be seen on the planet.
With a DMK21AS camera:
Animation of the Great Red Spot rotating onto the disk
Io (on the left) and its shadow on the planet and also Ganymede(on the right) can be seen in this image
I used Red, Green and Blue filters and the monochrome DMK21AS camera to capture this colour image of Jupiter. I combined the colour channels automatically in Andrew Sprott's CAP (Colour Alignment Processor) software:
This was a first attempt and more data were needed along with better focus.
Steve Wainwright
Steve Wainwright
Sunday, August 15, 2010
AR1099 and AR1093 fragment and approach the limb of the Sun
I imaged the Sun in H-alpha and Ca K-line light through Coronado PSTs. The camera used was a DMK21AS fitted with the lens assembly from a x2 Barlow:
In Ca K-line light (393.4nm) the sunspots can be seen to have fragmented as they approach the limb:
Click on the images to obtain larger views.
In H-alpha light (656.3 nm) the sunspots are shining brightly with plage. A large filament is close to the centre of the disk:
Steve Wainwright
Things happen while you are imaging
Wayne Jones was making a time-lapse sequence of a part of the Milky Way with a Sony DSLR last night and saw various things happening in the field of view. Click on the images to have a larger view:
A Meteor:
Detail from the top right of the image showing the Meteor and the Andromeda galaxy:
An aeroplane:
Clouds reflecting light-pollution and an aeroplane:
Even in the dark countryside the sky reveals the shameful waste of energy that is light-pollution.
Wayne Jones
Exploring Sagittarius with the modified Samsung SDC-435
I used the modified Samsung SDC-435 fitted with a light pollution filter and the 130mm f/5 Newtonian to explore Sagittarius:
The Lagoon Nebula
The Swan Nebula
The Trifid Nebula
This camera gave very good observational live views
Steve Wainwright
Friday, August 13, 2010
Jupiter last night
Jupiter was imaged with an 11" SCT and a DBK camera
Keith Davies
The Sun today in white light and Hydrogen-alpha light
The Sun was imaged in H-alpha light using a Mintron and a PST mounted on an EQ4:
H-alpha:
H-alpha:
White Light:
A 130mm Newtonian fitted with a Baader solar filter was used to image AR1093 which has recently split into two distinct spots:
Wayne Jones
Thursday, August 12, 2010
More images from Wayne Jones
The following images were taken over last weekend.
M51 was imaged with a Mintron 1/2" chip monochrome camera and a Kson ED1026, D=102, F=612, f/6 on an EQ5 dual drive mount:
Regions of interest in the image of the Milky Way
Click on the image to get a larger view
M51 was imaged with a Mintron 1/2" chip monochrome camera and a Kson ED1026, D=102, F=612, f/6 on an EQ5 dual drive mount:
Part pf the Milky Way was imaged with a Sony a230 DSLR with an 18-55mm Lens. The Camera was mounted on an EQ4. The settings were 18mm, f/3.5, ISO 3200 and a 30s exposure:
Click on the image to get a larger view
The Pleiades M45 was imaged with the DSLR using a 70-300mm lens set to 200mm, f/5.6, ISO 3200 with a 15s exposure.
The Pleiades:
Some of the blue reflection nebulosity of Merope's nebula is visible in the image.
Wayne Jones
M27 with the modified Samsung SDC-435 video camera and a 5" Newtonian
The 5" Newtonian was mounted on an AZ mount. I used modified settings on the camera to eliminate the dark rings around stars found in the last image with this configuration of camera and scope. 15 minutes of DVD were recorded at high quality. VOB frame extractor was used to extract BMPs from the DVD recording. The noise-reduction was set to maximum and the sharpening function was turned off. A corrected dark-frame was used and could maybe be improved as there is still a little amp glow evident. Deep Sky Stacker was used to de-rotate and stack the dark-corrected frames.
M27:
The dark rings around the stars have been eliminated.
It remains to tested how much much on-camera sharpening can be tolerated without causing dark ringing around the stars.
Steve Wainwright
M27:
The dark rings around the stars have been eliminated.
It remains to tested how much much on-camera sharpening can be tolerated without causing dark ringing around the stars.
Steve Wainwright
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Sunspots with a DMK and an 80mm Skywatcher Equinox Fluorite refractor
The scope was fitted with a Baader solar filter.
The first image is at the prime focus:
The second image is with a x3 Barlow:
Keith Davies
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