Trying the Deep Sky Camera in The New Forest

At the last minute we decided to go to the New Forest in Herman. The weather forecast was to be good, the best weather we will have had for many weeks because of all the rain we've had. So, it'd be a good opportunity to take the telescope & try out my new deep sky camera.

I thought I'd go just before sunset because that would give time to setup in day light (to see what I am doing) & practise on the sun, moon and maybe even the planet Mercury. But clouds got in the way and I realised that I'd have use a polar mount (that's when the scope starts off pointing at the pole star) due to the restricted movement caused by the large camera.

Setup of the pole mount was simple (never tried it before) and star  alignment was really good (new batteries also helps). It was at this point when trying to focus on the star Vega that I realised that the electronic focuser wasn't working.

So, no photos were taken but at least I got some practice in and saw a clear sky for once.

Taking Astrophotos

I thought it would be cool if I showed some of the video footage of the night sky that I've taken with the webcam and telescope.

First though, I'll explain a few things.

I've been using a low resolution (640x480 pixel) webcam to take the photos of the night sky.

The webcam is Philips SPC900NC which has been flashed to make it more sensitive to low light. The photos are taken by shooting video through the telescope without an eye piece. The video is captured on a laptop and it is then processed, at home, to create one picture. This processing, called stacking, is a matter of taking all the frames of the video and using the best bits to create a much clearer photo.

To capture the video I've started using the K3CCDTools which is is built for taking images of the night sky.

K3CCDTools can also stack the images but instead I use RegiStax 6. It is very good at what it does and there are so many settings to choose from but it can also be quite complicated. It's worth checking out some of the tutorials.

Check out the video below to see the before and after shots of the planets and the moon.

Astrophotos March 2012

After the success of the taking Mars with the x2 barlow I thought I'd try it on other planets. All these photos were taken on the same evening, 24 March in the New Forest.

Here's Mars again. This time it's clearer and you can see one of the poles, which is that white spot at the top. 

Mars

Jupiter with the barlow looks really big but I think the detail is starting to suffer.  Still looks impressive though.

Jupiter

 

Venus and Jupiter was very close in the sky this month. Unfortunately I wasn't able to take a photo of them together but I did manage a close up of Venus.

Here is the moon a couple of days old. It was very close to the horizon. Because the webcam views such a tiny part of the sky I had to take five photos of the moon and stitch them together to make this large image. Click on it to enlarge.

Astrophotos February 2012

All these photos were taken on one evening, the 19 February. I'm starting to get better at using the equipment and I'm able to take longer shots. I think the main benefit comes from the new software I'm using to take the video and I'm no longer using a virtual machine but a Windows partition (my laptop is a MacBook but the webcam and software is Windows only).

Anyway, enough of this techno-babal here are the photos.

At the time of taking the photos Venus was really bright and you could see it for most of the night. Jupiter was right over head approaching Venus. Mars was making its appearance a lot later on in the evening.

Venus in half phase looking very beautiful. I'm not sure if I've got the brightness correct yet. I know that you can't see any surface detail due to the full coverage of the highly toxic cloud system.

Venus

 
Jupiter, looking different from the shots I've previously taken. This is one of my favourites of Jupiter because you can see a lot of detail. Notice the different angle of the bands compared to previous photos. There also seems to be a tinged of blue and I'm not sure what that is.

Jupiter

This is Mars, the red planet. You really can see the surface detail. You can also that blueish light again! This was taken with the webcam connected to the x2 barlow.

Mars

Astrophotos November 2011

What I've never done is look at the sun with a telescope and that's because it is extremely dangerous, it would blind you in an instant.

When I was a kid I used to burn ants using nothing more than the power of the sun and a magnifying glass (my granddad taught me this). You can see the bright point of light burning everything it touches like a mega strength laser from a James Bond movie. This is how I imagine what the sun shining through a telescope would be like. The bright point of light from the eye piece would burn a hole through your eye, then your head and continue burning the trees and anything else in it's path.

So, I never looked through a telescope at the sun...until I brought some very special solar film. The one piece of A4 solar film looks like very thin kitchen foil but it very delicate and lets through 2% light. With the foil and a CD spindle tub lid (normally found containing blank CDs) I made a sun filter which fits snuggly over the ETX telescope.

Hooking up the webcam this is what I took.

A sun spot. You can also see different surface detail. This is my first and favourite sun photo

These following images are of the same sun spot on the same day a couple of weeks after the image above was taken. To me it looks like the same sun spot. 

Taken with the x2 barlow lens. I got a bit of dirt in there too noticeable by the big smudge.

Maybe a couple of minutes later and the same spot looks different

Astrophotos October 2011

I can't believe there is a 6 month gap between buying the webcam and actually taking photos with it but anyway here goes.
 
These are the first shots taken with the webcam. When I first saw them on the laptop I was completely stunned at how close and large Jupiter appeared. I'm not using any eye pieces or filters. To see these images through the ETX with your eye I'd need to use an eye piece more powerful than I actually have.

Jupiter and which looks like the Great Red Spot

Jupiter again but a few minutes later. Notice that the Great Red Spot has moved around due to the planets rotation.

Later in the month I took these shots of the moon. Looking a bit too green.