Solar actiivity

Not posted for ages - been busy building the modified A80Mf/PST solarscope.
Some nice activity yesterday makes it all worthwhile...

M101 Luminance from 1st September

Not a lot of time before the clouds rolled in so this was a bit of an experiment really.

7 x 5min Luminance binned 2 x 2.

Looks promising. Like every shot I seem to do it needs a heap more time than the weather will allow!!!

Shuttle STS128 launch over Europe

Only the second time the Shuttle has launched towards Europe.

Captured at 0420 UTC as it went overhead and into the SE through Orion.

Canon EOS 5D 28mm f4 30" exposure ISO1000.

First Solar Images

Taken yesterday actually - PST with 2 x Cemax barlow. On fixed Manfrotto camera tripod. Skynyx 2.1M. Processed Registax 5 / CS2.

I am pleased with these first results - impressions are the PST is a good one.

NGC 7635 Ha 22.08.09

9 x 10min Ha shots binned 2 x 2

Took some O3 and S2 too but had guiding issues so not worth using.

Journey to the centre of M31

NGC6888 Ha

From 27th July
10 x 5min Ha subs Binned 2 x 2.
Conditions nice and stable. NELM 6.2-6.3

M16 The Eagle Nebula - a really nice job....

One of those nights when it just all goes smoothly.....
Sat night - 25th
7 x 5min 6nM Ha binned 2 x 2
0.4m LX200R @ f6.3
FLI ML3200ME CCD @ -35C
Guided through FS102 / Lodestar on Paramount ME.


This is my best yet - I am chuffed to bits with this ...
R

Hot and Humid

Very hot an humid last night and it's forcast a week of it.
Looks like the portable air conditioner (available from http://www.dry-it-out.com ) is going to get moved from the obsy into the house...!!

Motorising the roof

The plan is to automate the Observatory as much as possible.
This means motorising the roof and adding the necessary sensors and software to open the roof at the start of a session and close it at the end or if the the weather becomes poor (wind, rain etc.)
Phase one is to actually motorise the roof and this has now been done using an 'off the shelf' garage door opening kit that has been very slightly modified to be used for this application.
Works a treat as you can see from the videos

Roof opening...

That was opening - what about closing her.....

M27 Narrowband

So here it is then...what I would consider to be the first 'proper' result from Dingle Observatory.

The data from the 23rd has been processed for my by Peter Shah.

Round - yes ROUND Stars.....

Having remounted the guidescope in a much more rigid way it seems at last I have round stars again.....

1 hour each narrowband S2/Ha/O3 binned 2 x 2 from last night.

False colour processing was never my strong point!!

Well. First time out for ages and I spent an hour and a half sorting the collimation out and then set off an overnight ACP run. Nearly every frame was scrap largely due to it failing to find a guide star - (cloudy I think). However, the first two were OK and yet I STILL have this oval star issue - (I have removed the lens from the AO unit to see if it was affecting star shape). I am beginning to think that is MUST be a guiding issue in some way - really racking my brains on this. Talk about going round in circles.......or ovals!

Steady progress - one step forward again...

Despite some threatening clouds at 11.30 I set up the gear and went to bed. 8 x 15min subs Ha on the pelican - I have still had to remove star ovality from the image using Focus Magic so there is clearly an optical alignment issue which I need to bottom but focus guiding etc was all fine. Slowly and surely we're getting there I think....

If it's not one thing it's another....

Set off ACP on the Pelican last night again with guiding reconfigured. Guiding was fine but focusmax/pdf failed to initialise properly so I have 2.5 hours of nicely out of focus, perfectly guided and framed Pelican!!! Grrr

Also, the out of focus stars are really oval - definite astigmatism somewhere - I suspect the AO unit myself and have a parfocal adaptor being made to replace the complete AO unit keeping the f ratio the same. That should be here by the end of next week.... Patience...patience.....PATIENCE!!!

Sky Quality Monitor

I now have the Sky Quality Monitor installed.

This little unit basically monitors the darkness of the sky. It measures it in Magnitudes per square arcsecond (MPSAS) and you can convert this to a theoretical Naked Eye Limiting Magnitude (NELM). The data is sent via a network connection to the PC and software it set-up to tek a reading every 5 minutes when it's dark.

The results are interesting - you can see the influence of the moon and cloud cover. Here's last night's data.....

Pelican - very very nearly nailed it...

I wasn't even going to set up the gear last night but the forecast and skies looked to be clearing so I set up ACP for 4 hours on the Pelican with a start time of 2330BST and went to bed.... 3.5 hours of data were good before dawn. NELM went to 5.7 so it obviously was clear and it was clear this morning when I got up. Run finshed, mount parked.
So this is 10 x 15mins Ha, binned 2 x 2. 16"LX200R @ f6.3 (2540mm)/ML3200ME/Astrodon 6nM Guided with Lodestar/FS102 at 820mm.
I have a guiding issue to sort still - there is clearly something not tracking right as the stars were oval (and consistant across the image). I have had to use a bit of 'after processing' to tidy up the stars and unfortunately it's left artifacts around them.Still - it's the first time I've done this subject with big-eye and it's great to get 'up close'!

Pelican - well nearly....

My initial reaction was - oh rats the guiding is all to pot again.
But - in defence of the system there is a lot of high cloud about and I think it just failed to reliably track the guide star - even through the FS102.
The SQM shows peak NELM at only 5.8 last night so this would seem to endorse that together with visual cloud as I went to bed and light high cloud still about this morning.
Soooo - this is the best I could get - 5 x 15min Ha binned 2 x 2. Sorry about the star trails......nice scale though!

Observatory Cooling

Well, I thought, the commercial observatories at the top of mountians do it so what can't I?

I have placed a portable air conditioner in the observatory today ( from http:www.dry-it-out.com). It is having a noticable effect in keeping the optics cool and should speed-up the temperature stabilisation of the telescope as the evening approaches....

All night for 15 minutes.....

Well I adjusted parameters, double checked settings and tried a repeat run of last night with it.
Same old problems - focus fine but failing to find a guide star. Got one usable frame of O111 on M27.
That's it then - the guiding goes back onto the FS102 and the AO get's blanked off.... I know it's all development but it's darn frustrating too at times!!!

Still - the extra 15 mins of O111 has actually smoothed the image nicely so all is not lost....

Two steps forward.....

Having utilised the Acquire Star function in FocusMax I now have basically got the focusing sorted at last. ACP was set to do periodic focus updates every 30 mins and did so without fault. Excellent.Managed a complete run last night on M13 and M27 and, apart from 3 x M27 frames, the lot was scrap because it failed to lock onto a guide star. So I have 2 and a half hours of perfectly focussed trailing stars!!!I'm not too bothered tbh as getting the focus sorted was No1 priority. Attached the 3 good frames 15min Ha 30mins O3 combined as Ha/O3/O3 Binned 2 x 2. Quite nice methinks.....

Focus Focus FOCUS

Another fully automated night last night under clear clear skies (about 40% new moon).

Still have focus issues - or rather automation ones - the FocusMax routine is not reliably adjusting the focus and, if it fails, it reverts to the previous setting so the consequence is that as the temperature drops and the telescope contracts in size the focus shifts and the images get steadily

worse. The best of the images is on the left - nice and tight. The overall colour image, right, looks far too soft though... (RGB 30:30:30)

M16 is the same....(30 mins Ha)

Keeping cool and dry....

Once of the issues with an observatory is keeping the equipment in good condition and also keeping an eye on temperatures too. In the winter there are massive potential condensation issues when the observatory is closed up.
Condensation can be controlled by the use of a dehumidifier. Modern dessicant dehumidifiers will operate efficiently at cold temperatures, are fully automatic in operation and drain the water away continuously. A dehumidifer controlling the humidity in the observatory stops all the corrosion and damp problems completely. Have a look at http://www.dry-it-out.com for more information on dehumidifiers for your observatory.

In the summer it is important to keep the telescope and equipment cool. If the equipment has got hot during the day then as the temperature drops at night the telescope radiates heat. This causes heat shimmer and upsets the seeing and quality of any images produced. The secret is to cool the telescope down to the same temperature as teh night sky. This can be done by opening the observatory 2 or 3 hours before you start imaging and running fans in the equipment to circulate the air. Commercial observatories go one better - they kdeep the temperature inside the observatory cooled using air conditioning during the day so the equipment does not heat up. This is entirely possible for the amateur to do as well - modern portable air conditioners can be used to great effect. Again have a look at the link above for more information.

First ACP auto run - I went to bed!

As it is now light until close to 11pm local time I have been pushing to try to fully automate the imaging so I can GO TO BED!

Last night I decided to run a fully automated sequence using ACP including duskflats and 2 hours each on M57 and M27. (It's getting light at about 3.30am BST so there's only about 4 hours of imaging time available per night at this time of the year).

The M57 data failed - ACP failed to track a guide star. The M27 data however was usable and the image above is the result - you can clearly see the gas clouds stretching far beyond the main nebula.

There is clearly a focus/collimation/alignment issue in the system somewhere though as the left side of the image is clearly out of focus yet the right is fine - more investigation needed!

Welcome to Dingle Astronomy

This is my attempt to get organised - or rather to get the astronomy side of my life organised!

First things first - I do NOT perform well with a lack of sleep..... strange hobby to have then eh????
I am an astro IMAGER not a 'look through the eyepiece and see what's there' visual viewer. Yes, I do look visually as well but using basic equipment like binoculars. My primary time and effort is put into astro imaging and the equipment is all optimised for doing this.

My interest started relatively recently actually. A friend and colleague, himself a keen astro imager, aroused my interest when he emailed across some of the images he had taken. This was about 3 years ago now. I loved these photo's and this made me start to look upwards at night with a little more interest. I had a simple point and shoot digital camera and was really enthused when, with it mounted on a tripod, I actually managed to get star images!

Then, of course it all goes wrong... I want to get zoomed into the action - I need a telescope - I want to take long exposures to pick out the faint details and colour - I need a motorised mount - and on it goes - Aperture fever it's called in the astronomy community - bigger telescope = more light = fainter detail = MORE MONEY!!!

A major leap forward in practicality and efficiency was made this spring with the building of a permanent observatory to house the equipment.
The hexagonal shape was a bit of a headache to design as the roof has to slide off completely. The roof and part of four sides slides off together with the tops of the remaining two sides capable of being lowered separately. This gives the telescopes a pretty much clear view all round (limited by the trees and vegetation!).

The site is very good for astronomy - well away from towns and villages, no street lights and good clear views - all essential factors in obtaining the best from the equipment.