Swansea Astronomical Society Blog
Monday, January 31, 2011
Afocal Jupiter and 3 of its moons
Last night a Samsung compact camera was placed at the 20mm Plosl eyepiece mounted in a rig to hold it in place. Time delay was used to make the exposures so that vibration could dampen down before the shutter released. Two images were captured, one at an ISO value of 80 and another at an ISO value of 1600.
The more sensitive ISO showed the overexposed planet and three of its moons:
The lower ISO value only showed the planet but did show some structure:
The two images were combined in Photoshop to produce a final image:
This demonstrates that afocal imaging is not restricted to lunar photography and that with a little patience and luck, planetary imaging is also possible.
Steve Wainwright
Jupiter with a Nexstar 8SE and a NextImage camera and a Canon SDLR
A NextImage camera was attached to the 8" SCT and this image was captured:
Then a x2 Barlow was placed on a Canon DSLR camera and this was attached to the SCT.
This image of jupiter was produced:
In both images it can be seen that the SEB has started to re-appear.
Gaynor Thomas
The trapezium with a 5", F/10 Maksutov and a modified SCD-435 camera
A Modified SDC-435 camera was placed at the prime focus of an autoguided 5", f/10 Maksutov.
DVD was captured, frames extracted, dark frames scaled and the frames stacked in registax. Finally the resulting image was processed and the aspect ratio corrected to 4:3
The trapezium stars are exciting the gas in the surrounding nebula.
Steve Wainwright
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Saturn This Morning
At about 2am this morning a monochrome DMK camera was used with a 1.5x Barlow on an 11" SCT
A colour DBK camera was also used with a 2.5x Barlow
Keith Davies
The Orion Nebula with a modified Samsung SDC-435 video camera and an 80mm Apochromatic refractor
Last night the modified SDC-435 video camera, fitted with a light pollution filter was placed at the prime focus of an Apo 80mm refractor. The system was autoguided using this homemade autoguiding rig:
DVD was captured in high quality from the camera which was set to LOW AGC.
Exposures were accumulated to reveal the outer nebulosity and also the central trapezium area.
The BMPs were extracted from the VOB files using Vob file extractor. The dark frames were scaled with Andrew Sprotts Dark Frame Scaler and the different exposures were combined in Andrew Sprott's FIC (Flexible Image Combine):
Steve Wainwright
Star Party at the Park Slip Nature Reserve Bridgend Jan 28
The Star Party was a success with a large number of visitors attending.
It was a joint event by Swansea, Port Talbot and Bridgend Astronomical Societies held at the Bridgend AS meeting and observing venue.
A small exhibition of astronomical images and two simultaneous lectures were held inside the modern Nature Reserve building.
Outside, a number of telescopes were available for members of the public to view through.
The early evening was largely cloudy with Jupiter being available for viewing for most of the evening. Towards the end of the evening the clouds largely cleared and visitors were able to view The Orion Nebula and the Pleiades.
Below is a selection of photographs to give a flavour of the evening:
Steve Wainwright
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Some aspects of Particle Physics talk
Many thanks to Dr Carlos Nunez of Swansea University who gave us an excellent, thought-provoking and very accessible talk about some principles within Physics at our meeting tonight. We look forward to seeing whether new discoveries at CERN will fit into the existing theories of Least Action!
Don't forget the Star Party tomorrow evening at Bridgend - Parc Slip Nature Reserve. Details on our Events pages. See you there : )
Monday, January 24, 2011
Terminator of a 77% phase Waning Moon
Last night I used an Opticstar PL-130M monochrome 1.3Mp camera set to 640 x 480 at the prime focus of a 5", f/10 Maksutov. 9 x 1200 frame AVIs were captured, processed in Registax and stitched together to make a mosaic of the Terminator and areas where detail was visible:
Click on the image to get a larger view
The rate of change of the Lunar phase is about 0.5% per hour at this part of the lunation as shown in the graph below which shows the % phase of the Moon today between 11h and 23h:
It is worth observing or imaging the Moon as early and as late as possible during an observing session as significant changes to the illumination will have taken place during much of the lunation.
Steve Wainwright
Click on the image to get a larger view
The rate of change of the Lunar phase is about 0.5% per hour at this part of the lunation as shown in the graph below which shows the % phase of the Moon today between 11h and 23h:
It is worth observing or imaging the Moon as early and as late as possible during an observing session as significant changes to the illumination will have taken place during much of the lunation.
The graph below shows the % Phase change during the entire current lunation on a daily basis:
There is a very significant part of the lunation where the change in % phase is almost linear over time.
The next graph shows the rate of change of the % Phase and it shows that the greatest rate of change occurs a couple of days on either side of about day 10 and day 22 of the lunation where the slope of the previous graph is steepest. This is the time of the lunation to make an early and a late set of observations of the Moon, to see change take place over a few hours.
The graph is not an exactly smooth curve because the values used are the integral parts of the Phase % that is reported by Moontool which does not report the fractional part.
Steve Wainwright
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Terminator of an 86% phase waning Moon
Last night I used an Opticstar PL-130M monochrome 1.3 Mp CMOS camera set to 640 x 480 at the prime focus of a 5", f/10 Maksutov.
The terminator was imaged and then stitched together in a mosaic:
Click on the image to get a larger view
Steve Wainwright
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Saturn
An SPC900NC camera was fitted with a 2x Barlow to an 8", f/10 SCT and AVIs of Saturn were captured, processed in Registax, corrected for atmospheric dispersion in Andrew Sprott's AutoCap software:
Nikki Mackin
A full afocal Moon
A Casio Exilim compact camera was used handheld, afocally with an Orion 8" Newtonian using autofocus. The first image was taken through a polarising filter:
Click on an image to get a larger view.
A compact camera used afocally with a telescope can produce very pleasing images of the Moon.
Dave Evans
Thursday, January 20, 2011
AR1147 in H-alpha and Ca K-line light
A DMK camera was used with a H-alpha and a Ca K-line PST to image The active region AR1147
Ca K-line light
Ca K-line light
H-alpha light
An image exposed to reveal the prominences was combined with an image exposed for the disk using Andrew Sprott's Solar layers program.
Steve Wainwright
Ca K-line light
Ca K-line light
H-alpha light
An image exposed to reveal the prominences was combined with an image exposed for the disk using Andrew Sprott's Solar layers program.
Steve Wainwright
Jupiter on Jan 18 and 19
On the evenings of January 18th and 19th Jupiter was imaged with a DBK camera and an 11", f/10 SCT
January 18th
January 19th showing a shadow transit of Io
January 18th
January 19th showing a shadow transit of Io
Keith Davies
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Terminator of an almost full Moon and Jupiter's SEB recovering
A Sweex WC067 webcam was placed at the prime focus of a 5", f/10 Maksutov and 3 AVIs were captured of each of 3 regions of the terminator of the 98% full Moon. The AVIs were processed in Registax to produce 3 images which were then stitched together into a mosaic:
Click on the image to get a larger view
This webcam has a very poor and faulty driver that does not properly support any of the possible resolutions. The most reliable resolution is 640 x 480 and that was used here, but even that resolution can crash and the whole system has to be restarted befor there is a chance of regaining control of the camera. I have written to Sweex about the driver for this camera and am awaiting a response.
This webcam has a very poor and faulty driver that does not properly support any of the possible resolutions. The most reliable resolution is 640 x 480 and that was used here, but even that resolution can crash and the whole system has to be restarted befor there is a chance of regaining control of the camera. I have written to Sweex about the driver for this camera and am awaiting a response.
A Philips SPC880NC/900NC camera fitted with a long nosepiece and the lens assembly of a 2x Barlow was fitted to the 5", f/10 Maksutov. 3 x 1 minute AVIs were captured and stacked in Registax to produce this image:
The GRS can be seen and the SEB seems to be re-appearing gradually.
Steve Wainwright
Monday, January 17, 2011
Narrowband images of the Horsehead and Flame nebula region of Orion and two galaxies in Ursa Major
On January 9th An Atik 314L camera was placed at the prime focus of an f/5, 80mm autoguided refractor. Images were captured through three narrowband filters: H-alpha, Sll and Olll. The monochrome images were then combined as false colour images using either H, S, or O as the red, green and blue channels in various combinations: For example HSO means that the H-alpha was the R channel, the Sll was the G channel and Olll was the B channel.
Click on an image to see a larger view.
Click on an image to see a larger view.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Open Evening at Swansea Airport in association with BBC Stargazing Live
We had a great evening at Swansea Airport last night with well over 100 members of the public in attendance as well as S4C who were broadcasting live on Wedi Saith as part of BBC Stargazing Live week.
Unfortunately the weather was not great, but at least it didn't rain! We were able to have some views of the Moon and of Jupiter and its 4 moons.
Our next public events will be on 28th January in Bridgend and 11th February at the National Botanical Gardens in Llanarthne - we are hoping for clearer skies then!
Here are some photos taken during the evening:
Unfortunately the weather was not great, but at least it didn't rain! We were able to have some views of the Moon and of Jupiter and its 4 moons.
Our next public events will be on 28th January in Bridgend and 11th February at the National Botanical Gardens in Llanarthne - we are hoping for clearer skies then!
Here are some photos taken during the evening:
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Heads up. More items on the SAS buy & sell page
More astronomical items for sale have been placed on the buy and sell page under Links on the Swansea Astronomical Society website.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Photons photons everywhere and none of them visible
This afternoon I turned a 5" f/10 Maksutov on the Moon in the daytime sky and placed a DMK camera at the prime focus.
The human eye can see light over the range 390nm up to 750nm, this is the visible spectrum.
I fitted a Schuler Infra-Red pass filter to the camera. This filter blocks all visible light and only starts to transmit radiation at 850nm in the near Infra Red.
I was able to obtain some very detailed images of part of the Moon and I merged them into a mosaic:
Click on the image to get a larger view.
I then sent the scope to look at Jupiter. I was able to see Jupiter against the daytime sky through the finderscope and then through the main scope against a bright sky. I replaced the DMK camera with the IR pass filter and captured data on Jupiter. I was surprised to find that I had also captured Jupiter's Galilean moons, Io, Callisto, Europa and Ganymede:
Click on the image to get a larger view.
Considerable structure was visible on Jupiter in the Infra Red and the SEB is clearly returning.
It should be noted that some so-called Infra-red pass filters also pass a considerable amount of visible light in the red. The Schuler filter I used transmits no visible light at all but does transmit near Infra Red which is invisble to the human eye, but the camera's CCD is sensitive to these wavelengths so they can be used for imaging.
Steve Wainwright
Saturday, January 8, 2011
A You tube compendium of modified SDC-435 images
Take a look at my You Tube compendium of some of the images I have taken with the modified SDC-435 video camera.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uT9QFJmmOA
Always remember that we will only be able to look at the Deep Sky if we have dark skies.
Read my short story and pass it on. Lets make it viral. It is intended for people who are not interested in dark skies. Maybe they can be encouraged to consider whether they are using light selfishly at night:
http://www.qcuiag.org.uk/dark/
Steve Wainwright
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uT9QFJmmOA
Always remember that we will only be able to look at the Deep Sky if we have dark skies.
Read my short story and pass it on. Lets make it viral. It is intended for people who are not interested in dark skies. Maybe they can be encouraged to consider whether they are using light selfishly at night:
http://www.qcuiag.org.uk/dark/
Steve Wainwright
Crescent Moon and Saturn
I used an alt-azimuth mount with a Skymax 127 Maksutov and an Opticstar PL-130M 1.3 MP monochrome camera at the prime focus. I set the camera in 640 x 480 mode to allow rapid image capture and within a 3 minute period captured 4 AVIs of 1000 frames each to mosaic the Whole Moon. It had to be done quickly because rotation due to the alt-azimuth mount did not cause problems with stitching together the 4 images. iMerge was used to make the mosaic of the Moon:
Click on the image to get a large view:
Steve Wainwright
Click on the image to get a large view:
Saturn was also imaged with an SPC880NC/900NC fitted with the lens assembly from a x2 Barlow:
Steve Wainwright
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