Return to the Sun

With a few rare sightings of the Sun lately, I decided to try and image the large sunspot AR 1131.  Separated by 2 days, the images clearly show the Sun's rotation (synodic period is a little over 26 days). One day I'll capture daily images to create a time lapse movie, but sadly not much chance of that at this time of year!
Images were colourised in CS3 but I still can't decide what hue and saturation looks most pleasing to the eye.


7th Dec



9th Dec

The Moon in Colour

This is the same image as the previous post, taken on the 16th November.  For this version, I've enhanced the colour saturation to try and show some of the differences in the surface composition. The colours are real, but our unaided eyes are normally incapable of detecting their subtlety, which is why we tend to see the familiar shades of grey.

The blue colouration indicates areas rich in titanium, in contrast to the orange areas which have a poor titanium content.

Titanium seas

Waxing Moon

Another shot later in this month's lunar cycle, taken with my DSLR.  Rather than stack a series of images, this is a single exposure with a bit of post-processing in Photoshop to adjust levels and a mild sharpen.

At this phase, the terminator can be seen cutting through the Imbrium basin, one of my favourite areas of the Moon; the highlands around Sinus Iridum just peeping above the shadows into the early morning sunlight.

Compared to the previous shot, the Mare Crisium has also clearly moved closer to the limb, showing the effect known as libration as the Moon oscillates in it's orbit around the Earth.

Still need to resurrect the scope to get some quality close-up's!

16th November

Moon 10th Nov 2010

First shot of one of my favourite targets in a long time.  Image taken with DSLR and 420mm lens. 

Exposure: 1/100 f8 ISO 200.

For a DSLR shot, I was quite pleased with the result, 'though I really need more image scale to bring out the detail. I must get my scope out of hibernation and start imaging with that I think!

4 days past new









A dabble into Deep Sky

In an effort to break the run of solar-centric blogging, here's my first serious attempt at deep sky guided imaging. What better subject to start on than M31?

This is a stack of 1 minute exposures taken through my DSLR and 300mm lens at f4. Guiding is courtesy of my good pal Dave's wonderful Astrotrac. Never having used this kit before, I'm also indebted to him for operating it for me!

Images stacked using Deep Sky Stacker and processed to death in Photoshop. With practice, I hope one day to know how to use this software for astro images; I feel like I'm just starting to climb a very steep hill!

As a first effort I was reasonably pleased, 'though for my next attempt I think the main aim will be to actually get the thing in focus which, with luck, may improve the final result. Well, if it was perfect, I'd have nothing to improve upon!



M31 and companions



Equipment

I've added a new page to the blog to show some of the equipment I use, and have used, over the years.  Click on the 'Equipment' button in the menu above to view this.

I'll add to this from time to time, so please keep looking!

Sun - 30th October

Sunny days are likely to be few and far between as we head towards Winter, so I thought I'd capture another solar white light image while I could.
The large sunspot group AR1117 is nearing the limb and will soon leave the visible disk. Another spot is creeping around the edge of the disk opposite AR1117. It will be interesting to see how this develops. The umbral region is just visible in the area of faculae, which themselves are enhanced by their contrast against the slightly darker limb region.


AR1117 nears the edge of the disk.



Solar Rotation

Amazingly, another clear day today. Having taken another image of the solar disk, I thought it would be interesting to composite the images from the last few days to show more clearly the rotation of the sun.
Ideally, as a future project, I must try and take a consistent run of images at regular and shorter time intervals. It would be interesting to then combine these and produce a short movie to show the rotation.



Solar rotation



The Sun continues to shine

Blessed with more sunshine over the last few days, I've been capturing a few more images, to try and improve my image processing workflow.

Here are a couple of shots from the 20th and 21st October. The rotation of the Sun over the 24 hour time difference is clear.
 

20th Oct



21st Oct



Sun 17th October 2010

Sun was shining today, so decided to try and take some images.

This shot was produced from 18 images stacked in Registax with a bit of processing in Photoshop CS3 and final colorising to make it more pleasing on the eye.

Original sub's taken with Nikon D300, 300mm prime with 1.4 converter (=420mm), 1/3200s at f8, through Baader solar film.

Main sunspots on show are numbered 1113 (top), 1115 (bottom) and 1112 (the group of small spots at right). Faculae can also be seen near the limb adjacent to the spots. Two smaller spots (un-numbered) can also be seen just above the centre of the disk.

Warning to non-astronomers - never look directly at the sun without proper filters designed for the purpose. Failure to do so risks ruining your camera and, more importantly, your eyes!

Our nearest star - 17th Oct 2010

Solar Eclipse. 22 July 2009

I consider myself fortunate. My company has a facility in Hangzhou, China, and my work involves occasional trips out to this part of the world. Imagine how I felt when I discovered that the center line of the eclipse passed right over our company. I needed to do some planning!
After a little gentle persuasion I was pleased when my boss agreed it was important that we had a business visit to coincide with the eclipse!

The morning of the eclipse arrived and, to my horror, there was total cloud cover. We were due to leave Hangzhou that afternoon to make another business visit to a facility in Tokyo, so I started to pack, resigned to the fact that I wouldn't see it. I happened to glance out of the window right at the start of the partial phase and, to my amazement, I could see the sun peeping out through high hazy cloud.  I dropped everything to collect my camera gear and rushed down from the 10th floor of the hotel, hardly believing my luck

I set up my camera on the lawn outside the hotel in the sticky heat, complete with 500mm lens and DIY filter made from Baader solar film. As the morning passed, the crowd of onlookers grew; all keen to view the disappearing solar disk through my camera and the hand-held viewer I'd made from some left-over film. This was a little concerning, with fears of my tripod disappearing amongst the crowd, and the risk of my new buddies removing the filter and damaging their eyes. Fortunately, everyone was very orderly and I was, for a time, the centre of attention, trying to explain what was going on through the medium of sign language!


World Trade Centre, Hangzhou



Totality approaches!



These are a collection of images of what we saw.

Partial phases were taken using the solar filter. A few seconds before totality, I removed the filter and programmed the camera to take images automatically every second through second contact, to try and capture the diamond ring and Bailey's beads. I did the same at third contact, before putting the filter back for further partial phase shots.

An amazing experience and I can't wait for the next one.



Second contact diamond ring



Bailey's beads





Totality


  


Beautiful!



Chromosphere and prominance



Jupiter Opposition 21st Sep 2010

An observing session of the Bedford Astronomical Society, organised for the night of opposition. In addition to observing through the 12" Dobsonian's on the terrace, great views were had through the Bedford School Observatory 16" Meade. Unfortunately, I didn't manage any images through the scopes, but was pleased with the atmosphere captured in these shots of "ghostly" society members.

In addition to Jupiter, we also had good views of the colourful green and blue disks of both Uranus and Neptune, the latter being a first for me. Marvellous!



By Jove!





Ghosts on the terrace....













Moonlight on the Bedford School Meade





Equipment

This is my current primary telescope - a 10" f6.3 Newtonian reflector. The mirrors were bought in the late 70's from Fullerscopes in London, the primary being made by respected mirror maker David Hinds. I housed these in a home made tube mounted on a Dobsonian mount. This sufficed for a few years, but in the 80's I decided I needed a better tube, so embarked on making a ply hexagonal affair in a tasteful shade of green (well I thought it looked nice anyway).

A few years later I once again decided that an upgrade was needed, to enable me to enter the wonderful world of guided imaging. Fortunately, Phil Stone's Superscopes company was located near by and I knew Phil from the Bedford AS. A few months later, my new Titan equatorial mount arrived, with my Hinds optics housed in a new shiny white tube......

This picture was taken a few years ago after I'd completed a complete refurb of the mount and tube assembly - a new paint job and cleaning/greasing of all the bearings.

First Light

I've been interested in astronomy since my early teens - a long time ago now! I have two early memories on the subject -

Watching coverage of the Apollo 11 moon landing at my auntie's house, and seeing my first bright meteor whilst walking home from the local chip shop with my friends. This was particularly memorable - the meteor exploded in a fiery finale, causing my jaw to drop in amazement, and my fish exploded as it fell from the newspaper and crashed to the ground in all the excitement!

A few years later, I received a wonderful Tasco refractor for Christmas. Never having used a "real" telescope before, I couldn't wait to feast my eyes on the colourful nebulae at 500 x magnification that were pictured on the box. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I was hugely disappointed with my first views. That was until I turned the behemoth instrument on the Moon. Although the views were by far inferior to those I would enjoy in later years, I didn't know that at the time, and the craters and maria I could see blew me away.

I was also amazed when I managed to find Saturn - my first planet - mainly due to the fact that the non-circular nature of the tiny disk was orientated in a different direction to the non-circular nature of the disks of all the other stars I looked at! With huge concentration, I could just about see the blurry rings.

Around about the same time I chose Astronomy for a school O level physics project. This was great because it encouraged me to read up and learn some facts on the subject. I now understood why I couldn't see those technicolour nebulae through my small (I now realised) telescope. I still have fond memories of lying in bed on Saturday mornings, reading Patrick Moore's Observers book of Astronomy over and over.

And so began my new hobby.

In this blog, I hope to cover a mix of recollections, records and pictures from my early delvings, and also a diary of my ongoing journey to understand and record what's up there.

I hope you'll follow me on the journey.............