This week we highlight the whole of the constellation Delphinus. This image was taken using the 200mm lenses on the MiniWASP array, and is a single framer. The image comprises 28 x 10-minute subs. I’m not sure a lot more exposure time will reveal a great deal more here, so for the moment this one is done.
A clear beautiful Moonless night last night, one of the best I’ve seen in a long while. Target – the constellation Sagitta. This is planned to be a 3-frame mosaic with the 200mm lenses and the 2600MC Pro CMOS cameras. Shown here is the middle one of the 3 frames. The frame to the left will contain the rest of Sagitta, and the frame to the right will contain the Coathanger cluster. This frame comprises 30 x 10-minute subs. I could’ve got one of the other frames last night (and I really should have done) but it’s been a fraught week and I just couldn’t stay up any longer.
Here we have the beautiful contrasting pair of stars Albireo in Cygnus. This is a crop to Albireo of an image taken with the original Hyperstar on a C11 with a tiny little H9C OSC CCD. This is around 62 x 30-second subs.
In putting the link in – somehow I got rid of all the text – how boring. So I’ll try again. The link below should take you to an animation of the inverse nova R Coronae Borealis as it goes from maximum to minimum magnitude. R Coronae Borealis is also a Carbon star (it is the massive amounts of ejected Carbon that cause this periodic dimming).
https://epod.usra.edu/.a/6a0105371bb32c970b02c8d3bd1c2c200c-pi
This morning I built up a switch box with 12V display meter to bolt onto the 12V 20A PSU for the dome rotator. All wired up – taken out to the observatory – connected up to the dome rotator black box – powered up – AND – everything worked perfectly 🙂 So I am now ready for this season’s imaging once the interfering Moon has moved on.
Thank you Tom How and Peter Dossett for tracking down the fault with the dome rotator – I am all ready for some imaging again 🙂 What I would like to get immediately (Moon and weather permitting) is a 3 frame mosaic using the 200mm lenses covering the whole of the constellation Sagitta (plus M71) AND the Coathanger Cluster. Should make a great image if I can capture it.
From mid-day tomorrow the New Forest Observatory will have its own YouTube channel.
This week we look right into the bright core of the Orion nebula to see the famous Trapezium group of stars. For me this is a rare image as it is clearly not taken with a Hyperstar or a Sky90. This is one of very few images I took back in the early days using the Celestron Nexstar 11 GPS at f#10 with the tiny little H9C OSC CCD! I only came across this long lost image very recently and did a tiny bit of tidying up in Photoshop before presenting here.
At the beginning of each month – starting with October 1st 2024 – there will be something new for you from the NFO. Make sure you log onto the NFO this October 1st to see what will be on offer.
A few weeks back the MiniWASP dome rotator decided to give up on me. My electronics was not up to the job of sorting the problem out, so I brought in the software and hardware experts who originally put the system together, Peter Dossett and Tom How.
These guys gave up their Saturday morning to come over to the New Forest Observatory and sort out the problem for me. It didn’t take them very long at all to zero in on the high current 12V power supply (basically a computer PSU) as being the problem. Very strange because the original computer PSU I used lasted 12 years without a glitch. The original PSU died on me so I replaced it with another one which seemed to drive the steppers for a while and then the steppers stopped working although the PSU seemed o.k. As it turned out the PSU was not o.k. and for some reason, after working perfectly well for a while, it decided it did not like to see an inductive load. Fortunately I had a spare 12V 20A PSU for the 3D printer (used specifically for inductive loads) and this replaced the computer PSU. Everything then worked again as it should!!
Tom & Pete suggested I shut the whole system down and start up again from scratch (very good idea) just to check it was working properly, and not tricking us – and fortunately it did fire up, with no issues.
So, the MiniWASP array is once again fully functional thanks to Tom & Pete’s efforts, and I am ready to tackle this season’s objects – weather permitting. But the very first job is to get the collimation back on the 200mm lenses, which for some unknown reason has changed over the last 6 months. It’s a never-ending job running an observatory!
Earlier I showed that not only can I offer astro-prints but also macros, micros, high-speed photography, landscape & Nature photography, and I completely forgot mathematical and fractal objects.
I can offer prints of any mathematical object (that can be described by an equation), prints of fractal objects of all kinds, and prints of constants (like Pi, e, Golden Ratio, I^I, etc.) to 10,000 decimal places.
If you are a mathematician or interested in all things mathematical and want a truly unique mathematical print for your wall, then just comment at the bottom of this post.
