Observing Reports
October 2006
9th October 2006
After a long few weeks of terrible skies and heavy cloud cover I finally managed to get out and practice drift alignment and guiding.
The sky was very clear and the moon was rising in the East. Although the sky was beginning to be drowned out by the moons glow I could still see the faint milkyway overhead.
I set the scope up at 7:50pm and took till around 9pm before I could capture my first image.
I spent quite a lot of time drift aligning the mount and using the Drift Tutorial in the day (created by Peter Kennett) was of great use.
The selected star did not move very quickly off the line and I feel that the mount was setup quite well.
I have also tied the cables together which reduces the time to setup the computer and camera. I didn’t have much of a problem finding a guide star and focusing. I now realise that the focus has to be very precise when locating the guide star as it would not appear on the sensor.
The DSLR control cable is working a treat now since I have fixed the connector. I’m going to give soldering a try, to make the connection a bit better. It seems one cable was shorting the connection and firing the shutter whenever it was plugged in.
The target of the night would be M57, The Ring Nebula in Lyra. I managed to locate it easily and target a guide star quite quickly.
Over the hour, I managed 11 images of 2 minutes each and one dark frame, so that’s a total of 22 minutes. Processing shall be carried out but I may need to read up on using Deepsky Stacker, I might just try Registax first.
The images turned out not too bad and star trailing is noticeable but not too bad for my second night out. I’ll need to try a few different options on Guidedog.
I had a good few hours under the stars and my wife even brought me a cup of coffee, she’s the best! (and probably reading this just now).
23rd October 2006
It was going to be a hit or miss night as there was a lot of scattered cloud and mist lingering.
After dinner I took a look at the sky and was pleasantly surprised that it had cleared to the South. I thought it best that I give it a go since I haven’t had the chance to get out for a while.
I set the mount up in the usual spot, which always gets me near Polaris. The ground underfoot was wet and the grass really needs cut as I could not see the three pieces of pavement slab I positioned for the feet of the mount, but after a few goes I managed to located them.
First thing I noticed looking towards the sky was just how clear it was between cloud breaks. I could make out the faint Milkyway high above and Lyra was especially noticeable.
At first I thought of only practicing drift alignment but as the sky cleared I tried auto-guiding again. Carried out a quick drift align, definitely not long enough and only taking a reading in the South. I was pressed for time as clouds were moving in fast.
Over the past few days I have purchased a few new items. A GPUSB port by Shoestring Astronomy allows me to use my laptop outside instead of the old desktop PC. This works very well and connects into a USB port on the laptop, then the auto-guiding port on my mount. I don’t have a serial port or parallel port available and only working with three USB ports it can get messy as I also use a Serial to USB converter for the Canon 350D shutter control. This has been the best $60 I have spent and is a great benefit in allowing me to use the laptop. Makes setting up very fast, probably now only takes 20 minutes.
Another item I purchased was the Baader MPCC for my Reflector. This aids in reducing coma towards the edge of field although I could not get it to focus or even attach to the focus tube so I modified a 2” eyepiece adaptor which works great (see my equipment page for images and description of the modification). One really good outcome of this modification was there is barely any in-focus left so finding the correct focus point is very easy and the difference it makes is worth the expense. Starts seem very sharp at the edge of frame.
So with all the equipment connected I loaded DSLR focus and turned on the camera, so far so good. I was going to try imaging an object in the South but due to the clouds I found that North was a lot clearer.
There was a great image of The Double Cluster in the November issue of Sky & Telescope so I thought I would try it out.
I positioned The Double Cluster in the view finder of the 350D and tried to find a guide star with my 70mm scope. I shall need to remember this as it was a lot easier to begin finding the guide star.
If I had aligned the scope I could have found other items easier but this still poses the problem if the object is too faint. A way round this would be to carry out a longer exposure to locate the object in the imaging chip.
Well back to The Double Cluster……..
The first image I tried was guided using PHDguiding and although this seems a great program I was unsure if it was doing anything. The image I captured was a 2 minute exposure but did show some slight trailing.
I could not seem to find the guide star while using a Barlow lens as the image was too dim.
For the next image I tried out Guidedog and was surprised at the dX & dY numbers as they were always very low, unlike previous attempts. I wonder if this has something to do with not using a Barlow lens in the guidescope as the image would not be magnified as much. Guidedog seemed to have worked very well and I’m pleased with the single exposure I managed to capture of 84 seconds. Flats shall be required as vegnetting was evident.
I had to stop the exposure early as the clouds were getting a bit too close to the cluster and just in time too as the rain started!
I have never packed my equipment up so fast!
It was a productive hour and I’m pleased that my Dell laptop worked so well with auto-guiding and shutter control.
Once I downloaded the image to the laptop I noticed that I still had the size on small/fine. Bugger! I forgot to change it after trying to get focus.
Mental note, I must remember to change these settings.
It was good to try the equipment out again and so far I’m pleased at how things work. I think the main problems to overcome are acquiring flats and a bright guide star.
26th October 2006
The weather today was very windy and wet but resulted in some very clear skies at night for a short viewing session.
Using a cheap pair of binoculars bought from Aldi’s for £12.99 I begun another dark sky adventure. These binoculars work very well and are great for the price. The binoculars have a zoom function built in allowing them to range from 10x – 30x and the 60mm aperture adds to the view. I did find my arms were getting quite tired after a few minutes viewing as I’m not very use to using these.
To the East, Perseus was rising and in the Southern Eastern direction Andromeda was riding high.
The dark sky was glittered with stars and a cold wind was blowing through the garden. It would not have been a good idea to use my scope as the wind was too strong for any high magnification viewing. The Milky Way was again on view, flowing through the sky like smoke and was faintly visible.
First stop of the night was Perseus and the Double Cluster. The view was absolutely stunning in these cheap binoculars. The view was filled with stars and the haze of the unresolved suns; the field of view captured the clusters very well. Increasing the magnification allowed a closer inspection and the view was still excellent.
Next object I noticed was M45, and realised that it was gaining height in the sky to become a great target for the telescope and Canon EOS 350D, if only I could get a few more clearer nights. This cluster was very bright with good defined stars and many strewn across the field of view.
Had a bit of a tough time finding M31, I know where it is but I think pointing the binoculars correctly was my main problem here. Once it was found the view was excellent, a very bright smudge of oval light brightening to the core. I did notice that the Southern edge was dimmer than the rest of the galaxy (or was that the Northern edge?).
M29, one of my favourite small clusters, was my next target, located in Cygnus. The cluster was very small but still quite easy to find and I could make out around 5 stars forming the familiar square asterism. It was quite a hazy view due to the size of stars but using averted viewing it was resolvable.
Further north, while scanning the area of Cygnus I stumbled over a bright star cluster which was easily recognisable as M39 due to the triangular shape. The view of this cluster was amazing showing loads of bright stars across the field of view. Even using slight magnification also proved worthwhile to the view.
Scanning around the sky I remembered from last year of the many clusters found in Auriga that I viewed and I’m quite sure I located one of the bigger ones M38. This looked more like a globular cluster as it was difficult to resolve any stars, but with averted vision I only just managed this.
Star clusters are some of the most beautiful object to view and on some occasions colour can be apparent, especially in long exposure photography. My latest image of the Double Cluster shows some very orange stars and I have recently reprocessed this image to show star diffraction spikes.
On with the report……. I’m confident I could just make out M57 between fleeting moments but I would not say it was the best view as the planetary nebula was very small.
I located “The Coat Hanger” cluster while trying to find M27 and was surprised at the size of the asterism. Very distinguishing shape with stars of approximately the same magnitude. M27 was just visible after a few scans of the surrounding area. Only showed a grey smudge of light but quite sure of the shape and size.
Positioning myself towards the end of the garden I had a quick look at the double Mizar and Alcor and had a very pleasing view through the binoculars.
Finally I took one last look at M31 and headed inside to the warmth.
It was a fun short viewing session lasting may be only 30 minutes, but I managed to find quite a few faint objects. It was also nice to appreciate the sky with my eyes instead of a CCD chip and reminds me when I started out in astronomy.
The binoculars appear to carry out quite a good job, but I wonder if this may be due to always having cheap binoculars, my inexperience of a good pair may be showing through.28th – 29th October 2006
A clear starry sky but very windy. Andromeda was high in the South and Orion was beginning to gain altitude.
Having a laptop in the field has made setting up a joy. Now it only takes a few minutes to have all my equipment out ready for imaging. Although I still need to practice auto-guiding.
The wind was blowing a gale and I realised that imaging would not be possible tonight as the guide star was rapidly moving in all directions. At times it calmed down but long exposure just would not work.
The sky was the clearest I have seen it in ages so I thought better than to waste a great night I would do some visual astronomy. Gathering images has lead be off this trail and I ended up having one of the best nights viewing of deep sky objects. The seeing was very good with great transparent skies, I wonder if it had something to do with the wind and stormy weather. Wish there was some planets up to take a look at, ahh well Saturn shall be around soon.
Like I said before imaging just would not be possible tonight but I had already aligned the telescope and positioned on M52 a bright cluster in Cassiopeia as I was trying for this and the neighbouring Bubble Nebula. I was a bit unsure which way the camera should go but I was going to try anyway.
So the first visual observation of the night was M52, this was quite a nice cluster, I would say it had a circular shape, with many dim stars apparent and I also noted another cluster near by. I shall need to consult some star charts to find out what this was.
Moving on and using my laptop and Starry Night software to aid me I tried for a faint cluster under the designation NGC7538. All that was apparent using the 8” scope was two very faint stars among a hazy background. This was still a very interesting object and worthy of another look to try and tease out more stars.
NGC457 “The Own Cluster” was a really amazing looking asterism. The view was upside down (if you were to see the owl as the distinct shape). The wing span of the owl was easily noticeable and one of the stars which made up the eyes was dimmer than the other. In the 25mm eyepiece the view was very bright with a single star just at the edge of field. This would be a good object to image.
The first planetary nebula of the night was NGC40. This was located between two stars with a 12 th magnitude star very nearby. The view was not that great but did notice the hazy surround with the central star just visible.
Planetary Nebular are not really something I tend to look at other than M27 and M57, but it was a nice change to try for some of the unknown types and ones I had never looked at. Always amazes me at how small they are.
The Small Dumbbell nebula was going to be next. This was the first time I have viewed it and it did have the same shape as M27 but I imagine it has the same appearance as M27 does in a small scope.
Goto on the scope was working really well and next up was M34 another bright cluster. This time the bright stars of this amazing cluster filled the whole view. This would be another great object to image. I may try it the next time I’m out. The cluster did not appear densely packed with stars but this actually added to the view, what a great sight.
NGC2399 “The Eskimo Nebula” was found easily and the planetary although very small did have the distinct shape, a hazy surround with the central star. This was another very interesting object.
Orion was gaining a lot of height and I thought it about time I had my first view of “The Orion Nebula” this season. I was not disappointed a lot of structure and nebulosity was visible and the trapezium was easy to see in the 25mm. A very grey colouring with loads of detail. I can’t wait to try and take a photo of this later in the year. Viewing a bit further North in Orion I tried for the Flame Nebula but to my disappointment it was not visible. M78 was very faint with two stars in the centre of a grey patch of haze. Not really much to look at but another object of the night located.
I took a quick look at M45 and it always amazes me at how bright the stars really are. M45 was very high now as it was probably around 1 o’clock in the morning and the wind seemed to be getting stronger.
The past few night I had tried to view M33 “The Pinwheel Galaxy” but without any luck. Tonight was different… the view presented to me through my 25mm eyepiece shall be one I will never forget. The smudge of light brightening to the core was visible with a distinct oval shape. I even said to my self “At last I can see it!” This was the highlight of the nights observation and I was very pleased with the view. This is on my list to image, but the list seems to be getting bigger each night out.
Took a small break to take in the sky with just my eyes and have a look at the Cygnus star clouds which make up sections of the Milky Way. This was the brightest view of the Milky Way yet and as before the star clouds were very apparent running right over the house. It never ceases to amaze me each and every time I look at the Milky Way.
Last object of the night was “The Blue Snowball”, NGC7632. This was a very star like object but did stand out that it was different than the surrounding stars on closer inspection. A hazy circle of light was only just visible.
Even though I did not get any images the viewing of the night really made up for it. This was the best observation I have had in our new house and really looking forward to many more.
Lets hope it stays clear and still so I can try and image some of these objects.
Chris
31st October 2006 – Halloween
It was another very windy, but clear day and I really wanted to try out auto-guiding again.
Set the equipment up at around 8pm and noticed that the wind had died down. This was a good sign as the sky was very clear with a bright half moon quite high.
I didn’t carry out a drift align and I really should have due to the slight rotational effect in images.
Guidedog was not working correctly, so I loaded up PHDGuiding and carried out the calibration. This takes around 2 minutes but the result speaks for its self.
Aligned the Goto mount and set the scope on M45, the field of view is a bit small for this object and I should try using the 80ED instead.
The images I managed to capture were of 3 minute exposures and no trailing was evident! Just for a test I tried a 5 minute exposure and the image was fine, so I gathered a few shots to stack. This program works really well and as long as you have a bright enough guidestar the calibration seems to do the trick. It would be very interesting to see just how long of an exposure I could manage. Drift alignment would need to be very good though and a permanent pier for the mount would be an advantage.
The stars in M45 were very sharp and bright with nebula just on view around Merope and Maia. On inspection of the first few frames I did notice slight trailing, but I realise that it is not a problem with the mount but that the wind nudged the scope as I did notice quite a few gusts during the first exposures. Later on though, the wind died down and left excellent star images over the remainder of the night.
After capturing around 30 mins of total exposure I thought I would try for M33, The Pinwheel Galaxy. Being a very faint object this would prove a challenge and with the Moon on view could drown out a lot of detail. The framing of M33 was not the best but a lot of detail was picked up in 3 min. I’m very pleased to have tried for this galaxy as it has been an object I have always wanted to image. Seems I have managed quite a lot over that past few days.
Next time out, I shall try the Orion 80ED for imaging. Must remember to cover the view finder in the EOS 350D as I think its added a bright patch to the images.