Swansea Astronomical Society Blog

A Nikon D700 was mounted at the prime focus of a 120mm ED Refractor.
The camera was set to ISO 6400 and 10 x 30s exposures were captured of M15 and stacked in Deep Sky Stacker:


9 x 1 minute exposures were captured on a field of sky containing M81 and M82 in Ursa Major and stacked in deep sky stacker:


Keith Davies

A Mintron camera was placed at the prime focus of a 5" Newtonian. The Mintron monitor screen was used as an electronic eyepiece for making the sketch. The sketch was photographed and then made negative:


The Mintron monitor screen was photographed with a mobile phone:


Chris Playle

A Pentax K-x DSLR was placed at the prime focus of an f/4.8 Newtonian fitted with a full aperture solar filter. Live-view was used to aid focussing and then 15 exposures were made using an infra-red remote control. The RAW files were stacked in Registax 5 :
AR1260 and 1261 were visible as well as another undesignated sunspot group near the centre of the disk. Click on an image to get a larger view:

Click on the image to see a 50% full-size disk.

The area containing AR1260 and 1261 was cropped out of the larger image:
These images are published on Spaceweather.com


A DMK21AS camera fitted with a UV/IR cut filter and a green, continuum filter was placed at the prime focus of the scope:

More detail was revealed

A x 2.5 Barlow was used to image the two sunspot groups separately:
AR1260


AR1261


Steve Wainwright

A DMK21AS camera with a 2.5 x Barlow was attached to a 5" Maksutov fitted with a Photo grade Baader solar filter. AR1260 was imaged in green continuum light. Images were colourised to represent the wavelengths used:


The same region was imaged in Ca K-line light with a CaK PST:


The whole solar disk was imaged in sections in H-alpha light with a H-alpha PST and a mosaic of the disk was made. Click on an image to get a larger view.


Later, the Veil nebula was imaged with an f/4.8 Newtonian and a Pentax K-x DSLR fitted with a light pollution filter. 44 minutes of 30s exposures were used to produce this image in Deep Sky Stacker. Dark frames and Flat fields were used:


Combining image data from two night's imaging produced an image based on 77 minutes total exposure:

Note the satellite track across the top of the image.

Steve Wainwright

A Pentax K-x DSLR fitted with a light pollution was placed at the prime focus of an f/4.8, 10" Newtonian. The camera was set to ISO 12800 and 30s exposures were captured of deep sky objects . The RAW files were stacked in Deep Sky Stacker:
Eastern Veil nebula (Caldwell 33)


M27


M51


M101


The Crescent nebula (Caldwell 27)


Steve Wainwright

A DMK21AS with an IR/UV cut filter and the lens assembly of a x2 Barlow was used with a H-alpha PST. A region of the limb close to AR1254 was exposed for the prominences and also for the disk. The resulting images were combined in Andrew Sprott's Solar Layers software. The resulting image was colourised to reflect the wavelength used.


The same region was imaged in Ca K-line light with a CaK PST and the DMK without the UV/IR cut filter. The image was colourised to reflect the region of the spectrum used:


Steve Wainwright

A DMK21AS camera fitted with an IR/UV cut filter and the lens assembly from a x2 Barlow was attached to a H-alpha PST on a Merlin Mount.
1000-frame AVIs were captured of overlapping areas of the solar disk and a mosaic was made.
The images were colourised to represent the wavelength used.


An area of the disk with substantial prominences on the limb was also exposed for the prominences. The two final images were combined in Andrew Sprott's Solar Layers software.


Later a PentaxK-x camera fitted with a light pollution filter and the lens assembly from a x2 Barlow was connected to a 6" Newtonian. 12 x 30s exposures of M27 were captured and stacked in Deep Sky Stacker:


Steve Wainwright

Images of the Moon and Saturn were taken afocally through an 8 inch reflector telescope using the camera on an iphone4 and the wide angle constellation shots were taken with a Nikon D50.



Atmospheric chromatic dispersion was corrected using Andrew Sprott's Colour Alignment Processor.


Orion behind a boarded up folly that was once a magnificent observatory.


Casseiopeia and Perseus


Bay view of Orion the hunter.

Tom Bradley

An afocal Rig was used to mount a Samsung compact camera behind an eyepiece.
The afocal rig:


Afocal rig with camera and eyepiece attached and aligned:


The afocal setup mounted on a 5" Newtonian:


The afocal setup with the camera imaging the Moon through a 40mm eyepiece:


Afocal Image of the Moon through a 40mm eyepiece:


Afocal image of the Plato region through a 20mm eyepiece


Steve Wainwright

A DMK21AS camera fitted with a short nosepiece, and IR/UV cut filter and the lens assembly from a x2 Barlow was attached to a H-alpha PST on a Merlin mount. The clouds had started to encroach on the Sun so 1000 frame AVIs were captured of overlapping eras of the solar disk. A Mosaic was constructed from the resulting images and was colourised to represent the wavelength of light being used:
Click on an image to get a larger view.

It can be seen that the solar disk shows a number of bright active regions and some filaments.

A region of prominences was exposed to reveal the prominences and also to reveal the disk details. The two resulting images were combined in Andrew Sprott's Solar Layers software:


Steve Wainwright

A DMK21AS camera fitted with a short nosepiece and the lens assembly from a x2 Barlow was used on a H-alpha PST and a CaK PST. The resulting images were colourised to represent the wavelengths used for imaging. With the H-alpha scope, 2000 AVI frames were captured in each of 9 overlapping areas of the Sun. Microsoft's ICE (Image Composite Editor) software was used to stitch the images together into a full solar disk:
Click on an image to get a larger view:

AR1247 can be seen as a region of active plage with small sunspots extending towards a large filament.
In Ca K-line light AR1247 can be seen to be a string of sunspots in a bright chromospheric network:


A detatched prominence could be seen on the southern limb of the Sun:

Plage in part of AR1247 can be seen at the top of the image.
Andrew Sprott's Solar Layers software was used to combine the image exposed for the disk with the image exposed for the prominences.

Steve Wainwright

A Mintron frame-accumulating video camera was placed at the prime focus of a 5" GOTO AZ Newtonian. On July 2 M27 was drawn in pencil on good quality white drawing paper and on July 4 M71 was drawn. The Mintron video camera system was used as an electronic eyepiece displaying the images on a 5" CRT monitor.
Snapshot of the monitor screen with a mobile phone camera:


The notebook on which the drawings were made:


The drawings were photographed and made negative to produce the final images:

M27


M71



Chris Playle

A 6" refractor fitted with a photographic grade Baader solar filter was used with a DMK21AS camera fitted with a Baader IR rejection filter, a Baader green continuum filter and the lens assembly from a x2 Barlow, stacked with a x3 Barlow to make the system f/30.
8000 frames were captured of AR1243 in AVIs each of 1000 frames. The final image is a stack of the 50 best frames as seeing was relatively poor. The image was colourised in the Gimp to represent the colour of the photophere:


An old T22 Thinkpad laptop with the Xubuntu operating system was used with a ToUCam Pro camera fitted with a Baader IR rejection filter and the lens assembly from a x2 Barlow and a H-alpha PST. Two areas of the Sun were imaged using wxAstrocapture. One area was also exposed for the prominences. 1000 frame AVIs were captured of each area. All of the processing was done under Linux with Registax and Andrew Sprott's Solar Layers running under wine. Post processing was done with the Gimp.


Then, a DMK21AS camera fitted with the lens assembly from a x2 Barlow and an IR rejection filter was used to image 6 overlapping areas of the Sun. 2000 frames wera captured for each region. Registax was used to stack the frames to produce the final 6 images. The images were stitched into a mosaic using Microsoft's free program Microsoft ICE (Image Composite Editor):

The image was colourised in the Gimp to reflect the wavelength used.

Steve Wainwright

Jupiter was imaged in the early hours of this morning using a DBK camera, a 120mm ED refractor and either a 1.5x or a 2.5x Barlow:




An Atik camera was used to capture images of two globular clusters:





Keith Davies