After my experimental “first light” imaging session with my newly modified Phillips SPC900NC webcam for Long Exposures (Steve Chambers mod), I have now processed the images and this is what they look like. They’re not visually fantastic, but for a first attempt I’m well pleased. Generally they were 15-20 second exposures. They couldn’t be any [...] Read more »
Its the end of another long cold session with my Celestron C6-SGT and everything is packed away. Ice is melting off the screen of my laptop as I type and drink a nice mug of hot chocolate. Its been a very nice clear night and finally, at last, I have been able to try out [...] Read more »
Here are the processed images of Mars from my imaging session last night using an SPC900NC webcam and 2x Barlow, with my C6-SGT XLT telescope.
These were approx. 10 x 30 second duration AVI sequences which I aligned and stacked using K3CCDTools, and including some histogram and unsharp mask enhancement to bring out the details.
I only [...] Read more »
Just a quick diary post tonight. More practice at setting up and polar alignment of my EQ5 Synscan Goto, and C6 SCT, to try and get some webcam images of Mars. I’ve managed to get some footage at prime focus and 2xBarlow recorded into K3CCDTools. Too late to be processing tonight, so pics will have [...] Read more »
Good nights for astronomy are often few and far between in the UK. We’ve had the usual run of miserable, rainy, cloudy nights. Sometimes when the early evening sky looks promising, inevitably the clouds roll in by the time we’ve had our supper!
So when a good, clear, cold night comes along you grab the opportunity, [...] Read more »
Well, maybe I’m slow on the uptake, but while experimenting with my iPod Touch more over the last few days to see what other astronomy related apps I can find (Star Walk, Starmap Pro, Moonwalk, etc), and the excellent NASA App being a fantastic resource, I have taken the time to find out more about [...] Read more »
Last night/morning (Jan 29th/30th) was the first time I have been out with my C6-SGT not only for 2010, but also for a whole year (previous post explains about my pond building antics putting my astronomy on hold!).
Coming home from work the evening sky was beautifully clear, and I was in a great mood taking [...] Read more »
Happy New Year to all my readers.
My last blog post was back in April when I had used my XT10i telescope as a theodolite measuring levels for my new pond.
Blimey, after a whole years work on our new koi pond and patio I am only just getting back to doing some astronomy. My favourite hobby [...] Read more »
Just lately I’ve been too busy with a completely different kind of project for me to do any astronomy, hence the rather long delay between my previous blog post and now.
We have been completely absorbed in the evenings designing a new pond for our fish. Basically the original pond (at 400 gallons) was too small [...] Read more »
After my previous attempts at getting some AVI captures of the star clusters in Auriga M36, M37, M38 and M35 in Gemini, with my webcam (which is not yet modified for long exposures) with my C6-SGT, this picture of M35 was the best out of them, although I admit it still pales in comparison to [...] Read more »
