The film “The Matrix” strikes a deep resonance with many people, so deep in fact that even respected scientists’ have asked the question, “Do we live in a Matrix Universe?” For those of you that haven’t seen the film, the … Continue reading
At the recent Starscape Exhibitions a common question was “how far away are these deep-sky objects?”. I gave a rough answer in terms of Light Years, and the questioner would walk away satisfied, but it was clear that they really … Continue reading
I can state without reservation that this is the most beautiful and informative astronomy book I currently own, and I own quite a few! But, what are the Arps? In 1966 Halton Arp published an atlas of 338 “Peculiar Galaxies”, … Continue reading
The imaging object of the month for October is the mass of emission nebulosity near Deneb in the constellation Cygnus: NGC7000 the North America nebula, and IC5070 the accompanying Pelican nebula, are both very large and very bright Hydrogen alpha … Continue reading
I’ve been a little quiet on the astro-imaging front this last week as I have had an unexpected electronics repair job to carry out!Another hobby area of mine involves photography, but at the other extreme end of the spectrum to … Continue reading
In a few of my posts about imaging you will see me mention “narrowband data” and words like “OIII” and “H-alpha”. Well, this is to do with narrowband light filters and line emission sources of light [as opposed to broadband emitters]. For … Continue reading
Have you ever had the problem where the time indicated on one of your clocks (including your computer’s clock) is different to another one? Well, I have and it can certainly cause headaches when trying to analyse the large amounts of data that … Continue reading
As I am located in the New Forest, you can imagine that for some months of the year, particularly from late September until late November, condensation is a major problem in the dome. I have always used a product called … Continue reading
The last RGB image of the Veil nebula has been significantly improved by adding some H-alpha and some OIII narrowband data as can be seen in the accompanying image. However, the project has turned into an even bigger undertaking. I … Continue reading
The Herschel 400 is a list of 400 objects catalogued by the eighteenth century astronomers Caroline and William Herschel. I put Caroline’s name first here because apparently she made a couple of new discoveries, that were not on Messier’s list, and … Continue reading
