Last nights Jupiter with Red Spot and Io

Thw shadow of Jupiter's Moon Io with its 400 active volcano's can be seen as a black dot transiting just above the great red spot.

 I was surprised at how quickly Io raced across Jupiter.
In the second image you can see that Io has moved slightly faster than the GRS.

Taken with Meade Etx 105pe and a £30 microsoft cinema lifecam webcam at 10 fps. Captured in sharpcap and processed with Pipp and Registax using the best 910 images from 1400 I think this is the best I can do with Jupiter with this setup.

Last Night's Orion Nebula near a very bright Moon 20130110.

I am still amazed at the images I can get with an old DSLR, two bits of wood and a microprocessor.

This image was taken last night as part of my Arduino driven Barn Door Tracker project.

19 thirty second exposures & 20 darks in a light polluted sky with a bright moon nearby. I think the brown glow is due to the Moon?

 I think I have finally got the mechanics, electrics and programming right. My barn door mount now tracks with the correct acceleration for the correct time, correcting for the straight threaded rod drive. Any errors I have seem to be in the accuracy or not of the polar alignment to the NCP.
During the evening I took about 130 images, all with pretty round stars.

Pleiades or Seven Sisters or M45

The weather is so cloudy wet and windy I decided to look at this image taken last week using my Arduino driven barn door mount.

It surprised me to see its similarity to the Plough (Ursa Major). This group of stars are travelling through a dust cloud giving them this blue glow.