Swansea Astronomical Society Blog

Friday, March 25, 2011

Active Region 1176

I used the 10" f/4.8 Newtonian fitted with a full aperture Baader solar filter to image the active region sunspot group AR1176 in Green continuum light and in Ca K-line light using Baader filters for those spectral regions.

In Green continuum light the lens assembly from a x2 Barlow was fitted to the DMK21 camera.

Green-continuum light image:

AR1176 in Ca K-line light:

AR1176 in H-alpha light

The active region is crackling with activity

Steve Wainwright

posted by astroimager # 10:09 PM 0 Comments

Clusters with a DSLR and an altazimuth mount

A Pentax K-x DSLR was fitted with a light pollution filter and the lens assembly from a x2 Barlow. It was attached to a 130mm f/5 Newtonian on a GOTO AZ mount.

30s exposures were captured of M37 and most of them showed slight trailing. 5 images that did not trail were stacked in Deep Sky stacker:

The different star colours can be seen in this open cluster in Auriga.

30s exposures were captured of M3 and the 12 that did not trail were stacked in Deep Sky Stacker:

Steve Wainwright

posted by astroimager # 1:19 AM 0 Comments

Thursday, March 24, 2011

The Sun and M51

This white light image was taken through an 80mm refractor using a DMK31 camera and a 3x Barlow:

The H-alpha images were taken through a H-alpha PST with a DBK camera and a 3x Barlow:

8 x 60s exposures were made of M51 through an 80mm refractor with an Atik camera. They were stacked in Deep Sky Stacker to produce this image:

Keith Davies

posted by astroimager # 12:46 PM 0 Comments

Saturn and deep sky before the Moon rises

Last night we used the LX200, f/10, 12" SCT at the Fairwood observatory to image M3 and M51 while we waited for Saturn to be high enough in the sky to attempt imaging. A Pentax K-x DSLR was fitted with a 2" adapter and placed at the prime focus of the SCT. The camera was set to 30s exposure at ISO 12800 and a 2s delay before the shutter released. Focussing was done by trial and error. These are the results we obtained:

We captured 7 RAW frames of M3 and stacked them in Deep-Sky Stacker

We captured 8 frames of M51 and stacked them in Registax

When Saturn was high enough in the sky we placed a Phillips SCP900NC webcam, fitted with the lens assembly of a x2 Barlow in the 1.25" adapter of the SCT. We captured 6, 1200-frame AVIs and stacked the best 500 frames in Registax.

Gaynor Thomas and Steve Wainwright

posted by astroimager # 11:19 AM 0 Comments

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

The Moon and Saturn with Linux

The sky cleared late last night and I was able to capture some images of Saturn and the Moon. I used a 5", F/10 Maksutov with a 2.5 x Barlow to image Saturn and an 80mm, f/5.5 refractor at Prime focus to image the Moon.

I used two webcams working with wxAstrocapture under Kubuntu Linux to image Saturn.

Image obtained with the SPC900NC webcam:

Image obtained with the Sweex HD HDR camera:

Using the Sweex CMOS based webcam, two x 1200-frame AVIS of the Moon were captured, stacked in Registax to form two images which were then stitched together into this Mosaic:

Steve Wainwright

posted by astroimager # 11:40 AM 0 Comments

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Moon March 21 and Sun March 22 with DSLR

A Pentax K-s DSLR camera was placed at the prime focus of an 80mm apochromatic f/5.5 refractor mounted on a photographic tripod. 25 exposures were made in rapid succession and then stacked in Registax:

Eyepiece projection through a 20mm plossl was used with the DSLR and H-alpha PST.

A virtual occultation disk has been placed on the solar disk to make it easier to view the prominences:

Steve Wainwright

posted by astroimager # 12:00 PM 1 Comments

Monday, March 21, 2011

The Sun, Saturn and Orion

On Friday night this image of Saturn was captured through an 11" SCT with a DBK21 camera and a 2.5 x Barlow

The 'dragon storm' can be seen at the top of the image

The solar images were captured on Saturday morning

White light images through an 80mm refractor fitted with a Baader solar filter using a DMK31 camera

PST H-alpha solar images

This image was captured just before this prominence erupted.

This image was captured on Friday night with an Atik 314 and an 80mm refractor

Keith Davies

posted by astroimager # 8:12 PM 0 Comments

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Results from the Fairwood observatory on Friday March 18th

There was a large Moon rising in the east and dominating the sky, making all deep-sky observing impossible

In the west, Jupiter and Mercury were setting in conjunction. Jupiter was below Mercury

Click on an image to see a larger view

The observatory is in the foreground.

Gaynor and Ken Shepherd used a Pentax K-x fitted with a 2" adapter with the LX200 12" SCT to capture images of different regions of the Moon. Here are some of their results:

Can you see the cat and lamb on the Moon?

Crater Plato and Sinus Iridum are clearly visible

Pallus somnii is very prominent

Steve Wainwright

posted by astroimager # 10:51 PM 0 Comments

Eruptive Prominance seen in Ca K-line light and in H-alpha before the eruption on March 19th

Between 11-48 and 11-58 this morning I imaged a large eruptive prominence as it rapidly expanded and faded over a 10 minute period in Ca K-line light.

It is most unusual to be able to see prominences in Ca K-line light with the CaK PST but this one was bright.
This animation is featured on spaceweather.com on March 19th.
This is a compound image of the 11-51 stage and the solar disk in Ca K-line light combined in Andrew Sprott's Solar layers software:

This is a mosaic of the full solar disk in Ca K-line light made from 4 images:

AR1175 is visible towards the top of the image

I had been imaging the prominence a few minutes earlier in H-alpha light and there was no sign of the eruption which was a rapid, transient phenomenon.

This image was captured at 11-30 in H-alpha light:

This image was captured using the Sweex HD, high dynamic range webcam under Kubuntu Linux earlier in the morning:

Considerable change took place in the structure of the prominence before it erupted.

Steve Wainwright

posted by astroimager # 6:02 PM 0 Comments

Thursday, March 17, 2011

The Moon with a Sweex WC067 HD webcam under Linux

We installed the Linux distro Kubuntu on an Acer Aspire 5315 laptop computer.

We found that the Sweex WC067 HD, High dynamic range CMOS based webcam works well in 640 x 480 Mode using wxAstrocapture, a program written by Carsten Arnholm to work under Linux as well as Windows.

Registax was installed under the Wine, Windows compatibility layer in Kubuntu.

The following images of the Moon were captured on the evening of March 15th:

The scope used was a Skymax 127, 5" Maksutov. The camera was fitted with an IR/UV cut filter. Most images were taken at the prime focus and one using a 2.5x Barlow:

The 'Cat on the Moon'

Craters Clavius and Tycho

Crater Clavius using a 2,5 x Barlow

Crater Plato and Synus Iridum

Steve Wainwright & Nikki Mackin

posted by astroimager # 12:49 AM 0 Comments

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Star Party at Swansea Airport Friday March 11th

Despite the fact that the sky was clouded over, the Star Party was a success with quite a large number of visitors. The airport cafe provided good and friendly refreshment services and members of the Swansea Astronomical Society put on displays and discussed astronomy and telescopes with visitors. Below are some photographs from the evening:

posted by astroimager # 3:37 PM 0 Comments

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Earthshine at twilight on March 7th

I used a Samsung compact camera with 15x optical zoom, tripod mounted and with a 2s shutter delay to capture 10 images of the crescent Moon in the twilight sky in quick succession. I then resized the images and stacked them in Registax. The stacking removed most of the noise. The dark side of the Moon can be seen clearly to be illuminated by earthshine even in a twilight sky.