It is great that photography provides us with such a filter, at amazingly low prices, in a large range of sizes - so finding one that will fit your optical setup should not be too difficult.  It is unfortunate that the photographic variety do not come in the standard 48mm diameter size as preferred by astronomers, but a 49 mm photographic filter can easily be accommodated in most optical trains.  These filters are labelled as R72 in photography shops and this means they transmit wavelengths beyond 720 nm, but not shorter (visible) wavelengths.  They are therefore almost custom made for infrared astronomy using Silicon detectors!

 The M42 region in Orion is rich in infrared emission with wavelengths extending from 1 um to over 100 um.  Unfortunately amateurs won’t be able to image at the interesting near, middle and long infrared wavelengths as this requires specialist detectors.  However, new and interesting data from 720 nm up to around 950 nm can be collected using a Silicon CCD and an R72 filter.  This image of M42 was taken in January using an R72 filter on an SXVF-M25C one shot colour camera.

You may have to search around a bit for a suitable choice of target.  Unfortunately a good H-alpha source is not necessarily a good very near infrared source as well.  I found this to my cost when I spent quite some time imaging the Rosette nebula with an R72 filter and ended up with virtually no data (from the Rosette) at all!  So as with many things in this fascinating hobby, it is very well worth experimenting - you may find something brand new!!

Clear January skies!!

This small image is unable to do the original 20 Megapixel monster justice, but as you can see the whole area is jam packed with stars and open clusters.  This is part of an on-going giga-project which is a sky panorama of the whole of Cassiopeia at high resolution!  Last night I managed a 4-framer of the Gamma Cassiopeia region and tonight I hope to make a start on Shedir.  I guesstimate that this will be at least a 7 x 7 frame mosaic, and possibly an 8 x 8 mosaic which would translate to a 320 Megapixel deep-sky image

However, this Christmas break I have decided to try and get some funding to put the rest of the observatory together for the mini-WASP array - so retailers are currently being pestered for their best prices.  I hope to be able to submit the grant proposal early in the New Year and will keep you informed of any developments.

I have always been fascinated by La Superba and when I saw it was as red on the monitor as described in the literature - it became an even more awe-inspiring object!

Covering pages 24 and 25 there is a huge one and a half page picture of the Belt region of Orion [great job done reproducing the colour there Keith - thank you!!] in the “Picture this” section of the magazine.  We also managed to get an image of the Cave nebula in the “Picture Gallery” section - so a really great start to the New Year for us.  Let’s hope Star Vistas continues the 2009 excitement for Parker/Carboni.