Last Night’s Astro Image

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Wow, it's been TWO MONTHS since I got a gap in the 'permacloud' that I have been able to make use of. Tonight with high hopes of a clear night right through to the small hours I set up, but only got half an hour of pictures before the cloud rolled in . The result is a bit noisy, but at least you can tell what it is, the Rosette nebula. Sadly there will be too much moon to get more of this for a few weeks and its rapidly sinking towards the west.

[BWParticipant @bw]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 04/12/2016 19:27:13:

And last night's image. Started imaging at 12:45 and was up until nearly five…

Hey Neil,

I like that picture.

Is that actually what you see through your eyepiece when you point your telescope at the right place ?

……… and if you cannot see it how do you know where to point the telescope ?

Bill

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Bill Wood 2 on 04/03/2017 12:01:08:

Is that actually what you see through your eyepiece when you point your telescope at the right place ?

……… and if you cannot see it how do you know where to point the telescope ?

Bill

No, its too faint to see in colour and even with a big scope and a very dark sky the Horsehead is apparently just a faint black scoop out of the nebulosity.

Easy to find as the big star is Alnitak, the left hand star in Orion's belt.

Other targets can be found using 'setting circles' or 'star hopping' but I made a GOTO box, so for the Rosette above I lined the scope up on relatively nearby Betelgeuse then told it to swing to the nebula.

See here for an idea of what you can see with a telescope.

Neil

[BWParticipant @bw]

Thanks Neil – that was puzzling me.

So if your GoTo box was a tiny bit inaccurate or if there is a +/- on the repeatability or the tracking could you spend 5 hours gathering data and have not much to show for it after the data is processed ?

I imagine the horsehead itself would occupy 0.0000x of a second in the field of vision

At the opposite end of the spectrum from yourself, am currently enjoying looking at craters on the moon and struggling to line up on Jupiter unbelievable how I can see things with bare eyes and yet miss them completely with the telescope. I guess I will get better with practice.

Am off to google hints to line up a small telescope.

Bill

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

The critical first step is polar alignment, which means making sure the 'right ascension' axis of the mount points exactly at a point above the north pole. This is done (on my setup) by looking through a special finderscope aligned with the axis and placing polaris at the right point (calculated by time and date) on a circular scale (to allow for it being slightly away from the pole).

Once this is done the mount will move (if I have it balanced right) with far more accuracy (the resolution is about 0.75 arc seconds) than I can point it for setting up! Most targets are big (the Rosette nebula is nearly three times the diameter of the moon), the apparent size of the Horsehead is about ten times the size of Jupiter at its biggest.

But yes, if the setup is poorly balanced I can end up with photos of the wrong part of the sky. A few quick test pictures usually confirm all is OK, for faint targets you just check the star pattern.

I suggest downloading the free programme 'Stellarium' which will give you an excellent way to choose targets for observation.

Neil

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Ages ago I got interested again and wrote myself an astronomy shopping list. It must have tempted fate because almost every night since has been cloudy. 100% cover as I type this. I haven't seen Polaris for months. Is England the worst place in the world for star-watching?

Dave

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

It seems to be generally agreed that this has been one of the worst winters for clear skies in living memory! The jet stream has been south of its usual location bringing endless low pressure and none of those nice big highs that give clear skies.

There were some fair nights in mid January, but caught a virus and didn't want to be out in the cold

Neil

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

For armchair Astronomers/Astronauts: Here's a Flickr archive of NASA images

Currently 1423 pages, but will presumably increase

Page_1 of PhotoStream: **LINK**

Page_1423 of PhotoStream:**LINK**

About: **LINK**

https://m.flickr.com/#/photos/projectapolloarchive/21751523890/

MichaelG.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

The great thing about NASA images is they are all copyright free, even for commercial use!

Another great resource is APOD – awful 190s-style website, but knockout images.

Neil

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

Last night there was an Air New Zealand flight south to view the Aurora Australis, about 150 passengers flew south in a B-767 from Dunedin, mostly Kiwis, but others from USA, Australia, South Africa, and no doubt other places, it cost them $NZ2,000 +, and those interviewed this morning said they would do it again. Thre probably are some photos on line.

Ian S C

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

An aurora is something I have always wanted to see.

We have had a few clear nights, this is Markarian's Chain – a chance alignment of galaxies in the Virgo Cluster – that looks like a wing of flying saucers coming in to attack!

I counted 25 galaxies in this picture, there are probably more!

This is the beehive cluster, just an open cluster of very pretty stars in Cancer:

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

The Aurora Australis ca sometimes be seen as far north as Darfield in Canterbury. Saw my first (and best) when I was about 8 yrs old, my bedroom window faced south, and I don't know how many hours I stood at the window watching it, a thing you can never forget.

Ian S C

[Roderick JenkinsParticipant @roderickjenkins93242]

Neil,

I think you're getting the hang of this lark. Very nice.

Rod

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

**LINK**

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

I thought you had taken that Ady!

I got some pictures of Jupiter with red spot and three of its moons last night, it will take a good while to process them.

Hoping for a clear night tonight, only four hours of 'astro dark' left already.

Neil

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

The last few nights the Aurora Australis has been quite bright, and visible as far north as Auckland. No sighting here as it's a bit misty to the south.

Ian S C

[Colin OsborneParticipant @colinosborne20186]

Neil, Those are brilliant photo's! From what you write I am guessing that you have an EQ5 or 6 as your mount. I know that the set-up for polar alignment can be a pain! I have a TAL 125 on an EQ5 which, as yet, I've not used in anger, i.e. no astro-photography on it yet. But the Celestron in the photo below has been used, I was lucky in that my son worked for an architectural fabricating firm as a designer and was able to design and manufacture a 'wedge' for the CPC, which is permanently mounted outside. Which makes life a bit easier

Colin.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Thanks Colin,

I have a humble EQ3, but on an EQ5 tripod which makes it a lot steadier.

You have a nice setup and a nice location there!

Neil

[Colin OsborneParticipant @colinosborne20186]

Yes, and that thorny shrub has now gone so that I have an almost 360 degree view all around. Plus there are reasonable 'dark skies here too. I once had my brother and his daughter here for a few days. They wanted to try the 'scopes out, so I left them to it after setting it all up and went in to make some coffee. Suddenly my brother came rushing in after about twenty minutes saying; 'Come and look at this!' Thinking that perhaps he had seen aliens landing, such was his excitement, I followed him out. 'Look at that!' he said, pointing upwards. There in all its glory was the milky way. 'Nice init', says I. 'I've never seen that before!' says he.

He lives in Maidstone. Nuff' said!

Colin.

[MWParticipant @mw27036]

Posted by Colin Osborne on 24/04/2017 21:06:55:

Yes, and that thorny shrub has now gone so that I have an almost 360 degree view all around.

Colin.

But what about all the wonderful screening the shrub provided?

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Colin Osborne on 24/04/2017 21:06:55:

Yes, and that thorny shrub has now gone so that I have an almost 360 degree view all around. Plus there are reasonable 'dark skies here too. I once had my brother and his daughter here for a few days. They wanted to try the 'scopes out, so I left them to it after setting it all up and went in to make some coffee. Suddenly my brother came rushing in after about twenty minutes saying; 'Come and look at this!' Thinking that perhaps he had seen aliens landing, such was his excitement, I followed him out. 'Look at that!' he said, pointing upwards. There in all its glory was the milky way. 'Nice init', says I. 'I've never seen that before!' says he.

He lives in Maidstone. Nuff' said!

Colin.

We camped on Exmoor several years ago when my Daughter was about 11 or 12. It was a crystal clear night and it was just incredible to see.

[Colin OsborneParticipant @colinosborne20186]

By the way, Neil, have you done any Solar imaging?

I have a Solar filter that fits on the end of the CPC but the last time I was down at the NLO in Sidmouth I bought a filter for the TAL that fits on the eye-piece. Yet to try it, although there has been massive CME's over the last three days (see: Solarham.com) so if the skies remain clear over the next couple of days I will try and get some images. If I'm successful (Ha!) I'll let you know how they come out.

Colin.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Another pot-shot at Jupiter, this with my new camera, 15 1-minute runs of video, then stacked and the resulting 15 images 'de-rotated' and stacked by a clever program called WinJuPos:

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Colin Osborne on 24/04/2017 21:47:34:

By the way, Neil, have you done any Solar imaging?

I have a Solar filter that fits on the end of the CPC but the last time I was down at the NLO in Sidmouth I bought a filter for the TAL that fits on the eye-piece. Yet to try it, although there has been massive CME's over the last three days (see: Solarham.com) so if the skies remain clear over the next couple of days I will try and get some images. If I'm successful (Ha!) I'll let you know how they come out.

Colin.

Just seen this message – just a basic white-light filter that shows granularity and sunspots.

Neil

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Saturn was at opposition on 14 June, it's very low down for the next few years, although it's well placed for the Aussies. With Jupiter getting lower it will be the 2020s before we start getting reasonable opportunities for planetary shorts again. Saturn will be at it's best for us in about 16 years!

That said, at least Saturn's rings are 'open' and I managed to get some decent video last night, and stacked several thousand frames.

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