Category Archives: Writing

mini-WASP, the latest

Well with the Sky 90 doing the imaging and the poor C11 just acting as a guide scope we are rapidly coming to the point where I go the whole hog and move over to mini-WASP imaging.  Doesn’t look like … Continue reading

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IOM September 2010 – six clusters and a supernova remnant to boot – what more do you want?

Cassiopeia as you will know is open cluster central – but do you know that there is a region THICK with open clusters (6 of them) AND it has a fantastic supernova remnant as well?  Use your scope’s GOTO to … Continue reading

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Not been able to set up the repaired M25C

With the current weather I have not been able to set up the repaired M25C for any imaging and I am aware of the days ticking past with nothing new to add 🙁  Still, this gives me a little time … Continue reading

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Perseid from August 11th before midnight

I went over to what I thought was going to be a “dark” bit of the forest around 10:00 p.m. last night and got worse sky glow on the horizon (from Southampton) than I get in my back garden.  So … Continue reading

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Perseid hunting tonight!

After a completely overcast day the cloud began to break up around 5:00 p.m. and now (9:00 p.m.) it looks like we might actually have a reasonably clear night.  Whooppeeeeeeeeee – I’m off over the forest with the AstroTrac Canon … Continue reading

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Thank you Tom How (Curdridge Observatory)!!!

Today it was brought home to me just how dangerous it is to work on your own in this imaging business.  Tom How is a local guy and an imaging expert, and we only recently realised that we hadn’t met up … Continue reading

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A Perseid from my Sodium light-polluted back-garden in Brockenhurst from early this morning

Testing out my all-sky imaging rig ready for next week’s maximum in the Perseid meteor shower.  AstroTrac, Canon 5D MkII camera, Canon 15mm fish-eye lens and Canon electronic shutter controller.  You might just make out a faint Perseid bottom left … Continue reading

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Blast it! Another go-deeper job I didn’t really want.

Last night I managed to grab the frame to the right of the Cocoon nebula – whilst at the same time getting some ultra-wide-fields of the Perseids using the Canon 5D MkII, 15mm fish-eye lens and AstroTrac.  Anyway – I … Continue reading

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IOM August 2010 – The Cocoon nebula in Cygnus

Imaging conditions steadily improve as we proceed through August and once again reasonably dark skies can be had in the late evening – the only problem being if you have a day job to get up early for the next … Continue reading

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Over 12 orders of magnitude in exposure time between subjects

I am using a Bryan Mumford Time Machine and the high speed flash gear from http://www.highspeedflash.com/ to create some visually stunning images of water collisions – an example is here: Some spikes added to the highlights using Noel Carboni’s plug-in … Continue reading

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