March 17, 2014
As you can see by the woeful number of updates recently, my interest in astronomy has pretty much disappeared. Lives change, priorities change, interests come and go, and there is no point in doing something if it is no longer interesting and fun. I think the biggest issues that wore me down was the constant fight with the cloud cover, and that the actual challenge of obtaining enough good data to improve the images I was creating. My partial OCD allowed me to set up every time, plug it all in, and it would work without an issue (much to the annoyance of others). Knowing that I couldn’t do much more to get better data (other than throwing more money at better OTAs or moving to somewhere like New Mexico) made me realise that I had come about as far as I could come, and suddenly the challenge of getting all the kit talking to each other and working was not enough to sustain the interest.
I still look up at the sky when its clear, see some familiar friends passing overhead across the sky, but at no point in a long time have I had the urge to grab all the kit and set it up for a session…. and so its time to close this blog. Well, when I say “close”, I really mean just stop posting to it in any way, not that any/many will notice this change give the lack of any updates anyway. I`ll be taking a look at my astronomy kit this weekend, ensuring it all works OK, and then pricing it all up for sale in the near future. A couple of bits need to go back to First Light Optics, who have helped me immensely over the year, supplying me with scopes and cameras to help push that edge required for improving image data, but I would imagine all the rest will get sold in the near future.
It has been fun over the years, but now its time to move on.
Posted by Steve under Astro | Comments Off on An end of some sort…
September 28, 2010
(Welcome to all the NASA APOD visitors for today, 5th October 2010)
The image here is the outcome of an idea that started last week, when I saw Maurice Toet’s 4 pane Mosaic of Orion’s sword area, and realised that it matched almost exacty the area I imaged in Hydrogen Alpha at Kelling Heath a few weeks back. Maurice was kind enough to provide me with the TIF file of the mosaic, and I set to work in combining the two sets of data.
Using Registar, PixInsight and CS2, and adding in some Hydrogen Alpha data as luminance for B33 and NGC2024 from Darren Jehan and Tim Jardine, the many many hours of trial and error produced the following image. It was an absolute joy to work on, and I am not sure it could be improved all that much without a major rework from scratch. It is one of those images that require a decently calibrated monitor, as my laptop screen shows it too light and salmon pink, while my decent screens at home and at work all show a vibrant Ha red in the background.
The details for the image data used in this final version is listed after the image. I would like to thank Maurice, Darren and Tim for all helping this project by allowing me to use their data.
(Click on image for larger version)
RGB Mosaic Data
Name: Maurice Toet
OTA: Takahashi FSQ-106ED @ f/5
Imaging: Q453-HR (QHY8)
Mount: Losmandy GM-8
Taken from : Etoile St. Cyrice, Hautes-Alpes, France
Date: January 25 – 26 and 27 – 28, 2009
Web: www.dutchdeepsky.com
Widefield Hydrogen Alpha data
Name: Steve Loughran
OTA: Borg 60 @ f/3.8
Imaging: SXVF M25C
Mount: EQ6
Taken from: Kelling Heath Star Party
Date: September 12th, 2010
Web: www.steves-astro.com
RGB M42/M43/NGC1977 data (used as Luminance)
Name: Steve Loughran
OTA: Skywatcher 190 MakNewt @ f/5.3
Imaging: QHY8
Mount: EQ6
Taken from: Cambridge, UK
Date: December 6th, 2008
Web: www.steves-astro.com
Horsehead (B33) Hydrogen Alpha data (used as Luminance)
Name: Darren Jehan
OTA: 12″ f/4 newtonian
Imaging: SXVF-H9
Mount: EQ6
Taken from: Kelling Heath Star Party
Date: September 12th, 2010
Web: darrenjehan.me.uk
Flame (NGC2024) Hydrogen Alpha data (used as Luminance)
Name: Tim Jardine
OTA: Celestron C9.25 @ ~f/6
Imaging: SX H9
Mount: EQ6
Taken from: Coventry,UK
Date: December 1st, 2009
Posted by Steve under Astro | Comments Off on Widefield Orion’s Sword in HaRGB – APOD 5th October 2010!!
June 24, 2009
I`ve been after this one ever since I (stupidly) tried to bag it with an unmodified 350D a few years back… I learnt quickly after that episode!
Its really low in he sky, way down in the murk from the UK, but its probably the best time of the year to image it. I know the sky wasnt great last night, turned a bit murky as the mositure dropped out of the sky, and then a bit misty early this morning, but considering it is so low, and the sky wasnt truly “dark”, I am happy with this image.
This was also first light for the Alan Gee telecompressor. The C11 does not provide a very flat field for large chip CCDs (see the closeup version of my M13 a while back for reference), and I had tried the 6.3 focal reducer several times before, but in the 18+ months I have had the Alan Gee unit, I had never tried it. Looking at the image, it gives a better flat field, but nowhere near perfect. CCD Inspector gives some dodgy results on the FITs files, probably because of the nebula in the center affecting its calculations.
Last weekend I spent some time arranging the kit so the back focus is somewhere near correct for the Alan Gee unit when using the Celestrin Off Axis Guider, and at the same time, ensuring that the lodestar guide camera is also in focus at the same time. Last night, all the bits went back together again, and everything worked first time.
Mount: EQ6 via EQMOD, plus CCD Commander
OTA: C11 + Alan Gee Telecompressor (@f/5.9)
Guiding: ED80 + SX Lodestar + PHD
Imaging: M25C + MaximDL, 1×600s, Astronomik 13nm Ha (100 bias, 100 flats)
Stacked: DeepSkyStacker
Post Process: PSCS2
(Click on image for larger version)
Posted by Steve under Astro | Comments Off on Another Eagle has landed (M16 Ha)
June 24, 2009
Just a quick process on this widefield image. The camera was piggybacked on the back of the EQ6/C11 while I was imaging something else (yet to be processed!), so this is “bonus” data 🙂
Imaging: QHY8 + 28mm Nikon DSLR Lens, Nebulosity, 5×900s, Baader 35nm Ha
Stacked: DeepSkyStacker
Post Process: PSCS2
(Click on image for larger version)
Posted by Steve under Astro | Comments Off on Cygnus Ha Widefield
June 1, 2009
Why cant we have this run of clear skies in the winter, when the wide field objects are high in the sky and its dark? eh? Pah!
Had a few “issues” over the weekend while out…. nothing serious, just annoying little things.
Bad things:
Its nowhere near dark…. couldnt believe how bright the sky really was, and I believe my subs reflect that poor condition. The lack of time also didnt help, not enough subs to smooth out the noise. May have to look at GRAS for the summer months, and/or invest in a 6nm/7nm Ha filter.
PAM played silly buggers on me using the FLT98… took me nearly 2 hours on Friday night to work out that it needs to look for 1 pixel stars with widefield images, or it may not solve it.
Couldnt get Maxim to guide… it just refused to “see” a guide star until I was doing 5 second subs with the SX Lodestar. Meanwhile, PHD was finding stars all over the place at 0.5 seconds with the same camera in the same OTA. Go figure…
Had some flexure, couldnt work it out for a while. Both nights I had flex due to the FLT98 focuser (which can rotate) was a bit floppy. Saturday night I had some flex because I thought I had tightened the ADM dovetail into the puck after some lateral balance adjustments…. but apparently not as tight as I thought! When I stripped it down on Sunday, I could rock the ADM Side-By-Side plate backwards and forwards in the puck. That could have been horribly expensive!
Good things:
CCD Commander is fantastic, and would be near perfect if I could get Maxim to bloody guide! Two frame IC1396, one half per night, perfect alignment for both bits!
Registar made short work of aligning the two parts, I just had to fiddle the curves/levels on both segments (2 separate layers to start with) in CS2 to get it somewhere near usable.
It only takes me 20 minutes to set up if the mount and scopes are already out 
The Televue flattener (TRF-2008) appears to be doing its job nicely.
More bad things:
Something I do when out with the kit really screws my back up. I have to be really careful to watch how I lift things. No wonder its been getting better recently, I havent been outside since Kelling(!!)
So, anyway, lets get to the image:
Mount: EQ6 via EQMOD, plus CCD Commander
OTA: WO FLT98CF + Televue 0.8x flattener (@ f/5)
Guiding: ED80 + SX Lodestar + PHD
Imaging: M25C + MaximDL, 8×600s + 16x600s, Astronomik 13nm Ha (100 bias, 100 flats)
Stacked: DeepSkyStacker
Post Process: ImagesPlus, Registar, PSCS2
Notes: Need far more time on this to be able to process it as far as I would like. I will return to this in August/Septmber.
(Click on image for larger version… sorry, its a bit noisy!)
Posted by Steve under Astro | Comments Off on IC1396 two-pane mosaic
May 1, 2009
Finally found the time to spend processing the subs from Friday night session at Kelling heath. The sky was a bit murky, and more than a bit blustery. The guiding was having real issues keeping the MakNewt pointing in the right place, so I am surprised to see the detail that has appeared out of the stacked version.
OTA: Skywatcher 190 MakNewt
Guiding: ED80 + DSI-C + PHD (The SX Lodestar misbehaved for some reason)
Imaging: M25C + MaximDL, 22×600s, IDAS (100 bias, 100 flats)
Stacked: DeepSkyStacker
Post Process: PSCS2 + ImagesPlus
(Click on image for larger version)
And a quick picture of my little part of the Kelling field…. the sky glow in the background is from the shower block on the Kelling Heath Yellow field. The spring event only has astronomers on the red field, so the lights stayed on pretty much everywhere else 🙁 The glow from Holt village to the south west also gets worse every year, not helped by the moisture in the air over the weekend.
Posted by Steve under Astro | Comments Off on Whale and Hockey Stick (NGC 4631 and NGC 4656) from Kelling
April 27, 2009
Below is a widefield image taken with my QHY8 + Gerd Neumann + 28mm Nikon DSLR lens (using a CLS LP filter), piggy backed on the back of the usual imaging setup.
The best thing about this image is that its a SINGLE 10 minute sub, hence why its a bit noisy, and why there is no larger image to view… it was a target of opportunity against a rapidly lightening dawn sky. Cant wait to get some more time on this target later in the year, and also with the IDAS filter instead… and maybe use an Ha filter for added detail
Posted by Steve under Astro | Comments Off on Cygnus + Milky Way Widefield
April 16, 2009
Taken with my QHY8 and the Nikon adapter.
I have a new lens, a Nikkor 28mm, with a lovely flat field. Some images from 1st April, 300s subs, cant remember how many of each (will have to go hunt them down). I think the CLS filter used is too harsh, so I will have to find the funds for another IDAS filter, as well as taking much longer subs.
Click on image for the larger version… M51 and M101 are both visible in the large version 🙂
And if you squint, you can kind of see the merest hint of milky way… click on image for larger version
Posted by Steve under Astro | Comments Off on Nikon DSLR lens widefields
April 2, 2009
Well, what another great night… seeing was great, transparency kind of “magic murk” again. With the hour change, I was out, set up and polar aligned well before astro dark started. I discovered that I can now laterally balance the MakNewt on the ADM side by side plate if I have my QHY8 + Nikon lens bundle on top of the ED80 on the other side of the plate… result! (Might post some wide field images from that later)
Anyway, here is my attempt at the Leo Trio. Never imaged this before, so am very happy with the way this has come out. I may have to reprocess it over the next day or two, as I havent had any sleep at all, and we all know what that can do to your post-processing 🙂
Note: This is now the reprocessed version.
OTA: Skywatcher 190 MakNewt
Guiding: ED80 + SX Lodestar + PHD
Imaging: M25C + MaximDL, 21×600s, IDAS (100 bias, 100 flats)
Stacked: DeepSkyStacker
Post Process: PSCS2
(Click on the image for the larger version).
Posted by Steve under Astro | Comments Off on A crisp and clean Leo Triplet (reprocessed)
March 21, 2009
I am extremely pleased with the outcome of this one 🙂
It took a while to get the C11 sorted, getting the SXV M25C in focus, and then getting the Off Axis Guider parfocal…. never want to do that again, but the result was just incredible. Perfect round stars, even when imaging at 2800mm focal length from a mount that was outside. The data was so good that I managed to drizzle stack this for 6000×4000 and the image data is still incredibly good…
OTA: C11 @ f/10
Guiding: C11 @ f/10 + Celestron OAG + DSI-C+ PHD
Imaging: M25C + MaximDL, 28×300s, IDAS
Stacked: DeepSkyStacker
Post Process: PSCS2
(Click on image for larger version)
And a closeup crop of the centre section
Posted by Steve under Astro | Comments Off on M13 RGB via the C11 @ f/10
