I was sitting at the computer yesterday (Saturday) typing out some rubbish or the other when for some unknown reason I suddenly twigged how those “Little Planet” images are taken. So I grabbed the Canon 5D MkII and a fish … Continue reading
Clear night last night so could see if my collimation efforts had any effect. The scope that always had reasonable collimation was still o.k. the scope that had poor collimation was still poor. Now seeing how they looked pretty much … Continue reading
I spent a couple of hours yesterday taking the imaging Sky 90s off the mini-WASP frame, collimating them with the Takahashi collimator, and then putting the whole thing back together again. Well – as far as the collimator goes, both … Continue reading
Nick Hudson (True Technology) visited the New Forest Observatory yesterday and brought with him an essential piece of kit for tuning up the mini-WASP array. Yes – the thing that has been halting any further progress on mini-WASP commissioning has … Continue reading
This was the “Close Encounters” scene over the New Forest Observatories at 6:00 p.m. on Thursday 12th April 2012. By 10:00 p.m. it had cleared to a perfect dark sky with no interfering Moon!
This is last night’s Sky-Watcher data (2-hours) composited with the earlier Sky 90 data (11 and a half hours) – so 13 and a half hours total into this one so far 🙂
I managed to get 2-hours on the Flaming Star nebula in Auriga with the Sky-Watcher Esprit ED-100 quintuplet refractor last night. Once again, not long enough for a pretty picture, but long enough to check out its performance. This image … Continue reading
Very lucky to have some clear skies again last night 🙂 Managed to get some imaging done on the Merak region with the new Esprit ED-100 quintuplet refractor. Two frames here, only half an hour per frame using 3-minute subs, … Continue reading
The utterly superb Sky-Watcher Esprit ED-100 quintuplet refractor is now mounted on the Paramount with the Megrez 80 guide scope piggy-backed above. I have a Robofocus connected to the ED-100 fine focus knob via a tiny timing belt and actually … Continue reading
Taken last night (2nd Feb 2012) in -3C temperatures with a blazing Moon overhead. Camera 1 on the mini-WASP, Dubhe, one of the two “pointer stars” in Ursa Major. A nice orange coloured star and another one for the “single … Continue reading
