A very partial lunar eclipse 25/04/2013

A lunar eclipse is caused by the Earth passing between the Moon and Sun. In this case the Earths shadow just clips the top of the Moon.

Copernicus Crater taken 20/04/2012

This is a stacked image of Copernicus Crater on  the Moon. I always think of it as the big one in the middle. It was taken using 352 images @ 15 frames per second using my £28 Microsoft HD Lifecam from ebay afocal on my Meade Etx 105. I used Registax to do the stacking.

Copernicus is 57 miles in diameter and its crater rays spead out for nearly 500 miles. Named after Nicolaus Copernicus it is estimated to be about 800 million years old.

ISS close up.

This is my second attempt at capturing the International Space Station as it flew by.

My first attempt was a disaster as I couldn't get it in the field of view at all.
Its quite difficult as although its nearly as big as two football pitches, its a long way away and travelling at around 17500 miles an hour. When it first appears low down in the sky its around 907 miles away and within 3 minutes and 21 seconds it is nearly overhead and just 260 miles away. I used a 10 frames per second afocal webcam and my Meade Etx105pe. I pre focussed it on a star as there is no time to focus on the ISS.
During this time the shape and angle of its image changes, so stacking too many images won't work.  In fact my aim was so bad that this image is made from just two images out of 2,305. I think I can do a lot better next time as this image is overexposed and blurred possibly from camera shake. I am going to try a moon filter as it was so bright and reuse the machine gun approach guided by my red dot finder but position the scope in front of its path so it passes through the frame. I hope this approach will allow the vibration to settle before capturing the image. I will hopefully post the results soon.

International Space Station 20130413

Last nights International Space Station pass, very bright at -3.3. Taken with a Canon 40d and 17mm lens @ 2.8 using 23x10 sec stacked images 2 secs apart. Jupiter is in Taurus & the Pleiades can be seen above the Moon.

M65 & M66 in Leo

This is my first attempt at deep space Galaxies. Part of the Leo triplet these two galaxies are 35 million light years away. Taken through orange light polluted sky, I was quite pleased with this image as I could hardly see them at all through the scope. I used only 16 x 20sec images at ISO 3200 plus darks, flats and bias frames stacked in DSS. Due to blustery conditions, only 16 out of 80 images had round stars. I hope to do much better with good seeing and calmer weather in future.

Full Moon landscape.

I just had to blog this image. I think it just happened to fall into place. The clouds, full moon and the large tree with the brown tinted branches seem to make the scene a little eerie.

Moon through cloud 20130325

Its been very cloudy over the past few weeks but looking out into the garden I noticed the Moon was trying to shine. I couldn't resist a shot at the wonderful cloud pattern.

33% Waxing Moon 20130317

Taken with a Skywatcher 500mm F7 refractor and Canon 40D Dslr Afocal.
Shutter speed of 1/30 sec ISO 250.
The Crater with the central spot is Theophilus which is 110km across.

Comet Panstarrs and the Moon 2013/03/14

I tried again tonight to get a descent image of this comet and lukily the skys cleared for a short time. The comet was supposed to be 10 degrees up from the horizon and as the sun set I scanned the sky with my binoculars with no luck. This comet is a bit dissapointing for me as I remember Hale-bopp in 1995 lighting up the sky even with the naked eye and I was expecting a repeat.

Finally after nearly an hour of searching the sky comet Panstarrs appeared as if by magic from behind a whispy cloud. It was sitting in a clear area of the sky with some thin cloud approachig.

I had already focused my 500mm skywatcher refractor on the moon using live view on my 40d so I rattled off as many shots as possible with different ISO settings from 100 to 1600.

The final comet shot was 2.5 seconds at ISO 400. F7

This lovely waxing Moon 10% lit was to far away from the comet to be  in the same shot so here it is on its own. The same scope and afocal camera was used set at ISO 100 at 1/80th of a second F7.



Comet C/20122 L4 (Panstarrs) on 13/03/2013

 

Finally after 4 days of disapointing cloudy skies it was partially cloudy. I took lots of images of the bright star just below the moon thinkung it was the comet. Browsing through the images later, I discovered the comet lurking near the horizon. Its much smaller than I thought it would be but at least I've got I my first image of a comet.

Image was taken using a Canon 40D. 

Settings were 4 second exposure, Iso 800, F/4 and focal length 111mm