We would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year and a great 2008. 

Noel & Greg.

I found this review of the Making Beautiful Deep-Sky Images book by Michael Bakich titled Easy Pretty Pictures.

It is a great review – thanks Michael! 🙂

HAPPY 90th BIRTHDAY SIR ARTHUR C CLARKE!!!!!!! 

Have a great day, and a great year to come 🙂

Greg and Noel.

The Book signing at Best Sellers bookshop in Brockenhurst went very well today!  I was there from 10.00am until midday signing copies of Making Beautiful Deep-Sky Images.  The event was very well attended despite sub-zero outside temperatures. 

There will be another book signing at Waterstones bookshop on the University of Southampton campus at a time and date yet to be decided.

Thanks to everyone who turned up.  The photos show the bookshop, customers checking out the merchandise, and Greg getting down to business signing a book 🙂

Tomorrow (15th December 2007) I will be signing books at “Book Sellers” in Brockenhurst between 10.00am and 12.00 midday.

If you just fancy dropping by for a chat then please do – it will be great to see people.

Update on the coffee-table book deliberations.  It’s more great news – Star Vistas will be published in 2008 with a publisher yet to be formally announced – so keep watching this space.

For a bit of a “teaser” the Foreword will be written by:

• Sir Arthur C Clarke
• Sir Patrick Moore
• Dr. Brian May

Get your pre-orders in for what will soon become a collectors’ item 🙂

The mini-WASP framework was delivered to the New Forest Observatory by the CEO of NTE Poole, Eric Kennedy, on Wednesday 5th December 2007.

If you have just joined us then make sure you read all about the mini-Wasp Array Project from the beginning.

The accompanying photos show the all-Aluminium black-anodised mini-WASP framework with the Megrez 80 mm guidescope, and one of the two Sky 90 imaging scopes attached. 

The fourth aperture will be used to house a Takahashi FSQ106 with reducer/corrector, camera rotator and filter-wheel.  The imaging camera for the FSQ will be the Starlight Xpress monochrome H36.

The next component I need for this project is the one that will cause the longest delay – it’s the mount!

Our deep wide-field M42 image made the cover of AstroPhoto Insight magazine.  Al Degutis did a great job on the printing for this one – thank you Al!

Tags: Sky 90, SXVF-M25C

Two weeks ago I bought a Canon 40D DSLR camera for terrestrial work.  While playing with this beast it struck me that by using the same mosaic techniques that we use in creating big deep-sky panoramas – we could actually create gigapixel images! 

Why should we want to do that? 

Well, one reason is that we could print out very large images at extremely high resolution – something that wouldn’t have been seen before – so this might have some interesting effects on the eye-brain system.  Secondly – if kept on the computer monitor – you would be able to zoom in to see incredibly small detail. Read the rest of this entry »

For December, the imaging object of the Month could be any number of goodies in Orion or neighbouring Monoceros.  So it could be M42 the Great Nebula in Orion, or the nearby Horsehead region lying close to the brilliant belt star Alnitak. 

Moving eastwards towards Monoceros we have the Cone nebula and Christmas Tree cluster, and again nearby we have the fabulous Rosette nebula.  Any one of these remarkable deep-sky objects would make a suitable “Imaging Object of the Month” – but for this year I have chosen Caldwell 49 which is also known as the Rosette nebula, NGC2237, the Great Nebula in Monoceros, or Swift’s nebula.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Sky 90, SXVF-M25C