THE DOT IN ASTRODIGITAL.NET

The dying star of the Pinwheel galaxy

2012-02-01T22:13:00.003+01:00

Good evening ladies and gentlemen! Do you remember the star exploded in the Pinwheel galaxy last year? I blogged my observation five months ago at http://xipteras.blogspot.com and since many people found that thread interesting I decided to revisit that galaxy again to find out how the supernova remnant now looks like. From the beginning, it was clear for me, I had to use a bigger instrument than last year and a sensitive astrocamera exposing for a long time since the supernova remnant should be remarkably fainter now than last year. This time, I had to go really deep, so I made 7 sub exposures with 15 minutes each at 704mm focal length (f/5.4). I stacked and processed the sub exposures with special software to make it happen. Here is the galaxy M101 and the area around it. There is only one question now: "Can we still see the supernova remnant five months later?"

The answer is "Yes, we can!" See below:

"The Pinwheel Galaxy (also known as Messier 101 or NGC 5457) is a face-on spiral galaxy in the constellation Ursa Major." [Source: Wikipedia]
--
Find more information at: http://messier.seds.org or http://en.wikipedia.org
A high resolution photo is also available at: http://dark.astrodigital.net

A rose in the sky

2012-01-23T21:24:00.003+01:00

This is the Rosette Nebula in the Monoceros constellation.
A high resolution photo is available at: http://dark.astrodigital.net

A man is running next to the Orion nebula

2012-01-22T21:14:00.003+01:00

This is one of the best known celestial objects. Messier 42 is a combination of a bright emission and a reflection nebula. Do you see the running man next to it?
See also: http://dark.astrodigital.net

Look, there is a horse head in the sky!

2012-01-22T20:58:00.000+01:00

The B33 and IC434 nebulas in Orion are among the most prominent regions of the northern winter sky. See also: http://dark.astrodigital.net/p465714843/ef0d2994

The Whirlpool galaxy

2012-01-20T22:15:00.001+01:00

This is crop of the following photo. It has been shot at 750mm (f/5.5) FL and a color camera having 7.8x7.8mu pixels.

This is the wide view 1,8° x 1,2°.

A hires photo is available under: http://dark.astrodigital.net
Find more info at http://messier.seds.org or http://en.wikipedia.org

The Jupiter Zoo

2012-01-17T21:06:00.001+01:00

What an amazing year! 2011 was a very productive one, offering our astronomy community numerous chances to capture the planets and especially the biggest one; Jupiter! Often, the atmospheric conditions were good enough to make high resolution planetary photography possible even from the backyard!

This is a short video clip of Jupiter on Sept. 26th, 2011 at 20:54 GMT, one month before its opposition. All photos have been taken at 3860mm focal length using a TIS DBK21 color camera on an old Dall Kirkham cassegrain telescope.

This RGB composite has been developed with the software Giotto by following certain processing steps described here. You can easily detect Jupiter's Great Red Spot, a storm having almost the same diameter as Earth. [Wikipedia]

Although Jupiter would need to be about 75 times as massive to fuse hydrogen and become a star, the smallest red dwarf is only about 30 percent larger in radius than Jupiter. [Wikipedia]

The shadow of Jupiter's icy moon Europa can be detected as a dark spot on some of the images, an evidence of a Sun eclipse on Jupiter. However, this is something occuring frequently.

NGC 2232 in Monoceros

2012-01-16T09:13:00.003+01:00

Here we are again! I wish you a happy new earth year 2012. Let's look at the stars again! Towards the galactic disk, in the Monoceros constellation, an impressive open star cluster called NGC2232 is visible even in small instruments. This group of stars has a brightness of 4.2 mag and an apparent size of 53 arcmin in our sky. It has a diameter of approx. 18 light years and its light travels 1200 years to reach our planet [Wikipedia]. A high resolution image is available at: http://dark.astrodigital.net.

How to capture a dancing planet

2011-11-16T22:57:00.001+01:00

When Jupiter dances, you may need GRGB !
Since two years I capture the planets by using a powerful one shot color webcam, the TIS DBK21USB. It produces regular avi video files. After stacking the avi files with the software Registax, I produce FITS files, need sharpening. The sharpening step is done by using the wavelets function in Registax. Finally, I split the best FITS image in its three separate channels R,G, and B in order to use one of them as luminance, since my seeing conditions from my roof observatory are usually bad.

I need a luminance! But which one?
Depending on what kind of details you want to visualize on a specific planet (i.e. cloud or surface details), a suitable channel should be used as luminance. See below:

Jupiter and Saturn
I extract the G (green) channel in order to set it as a luminance. It has a higher resolution than red or blue because of the RGGB mask placed on the camera sensor. Two of the four pixels in the RGGB matrix are green.

Examples on other planets:

Mars
I extract the R (red) channel in order to set it as luminance to bring out more albedo details under my poor seeing conditions. The red channel does not suffer from seeing so much as the green and blue channel. It has a low resolution, since only one of the four pixels in the RGGB matrix is red.
If you want to visualize the orographic cloud structures on Mars you will want to use the B (blue) channel as luminance. You need very good seeing to get a sharp blue channel. These are very rare especially from roof observatories, where the local seeing also plays a role. Perhaps once a year? I think so.

Venus
I extract the B (blue) channel in order to set it as luminance as the cloud structures on Venus are visible in the blue/UV channel. As I said before, the blue channel suffers more from the seeing than the red or the green channel. Its resolution is also low.

NOTE: If your seeing conditions are excellent, the most accurate method for planet photography is simply RGB. You prevent sacrifying details both in the cloud structures and on the surface of the planets using the classic RGB method. See my latest results on Jupiter at http://dark.astrodigital.net.

If you are interested on how to process a RGB planet photos with the software GIOTTO and MaximDL please visit my homepage at: http://www.astrodigital.net

Photo shooting with IC Capture.AS

This is the software package I use with my DBK21 webcam. One of the advantages it provides is the live display of the RGB values. I pay special attention during the image acquisition, not to exceed the max. values of 255 in each RGB diagram. The screenshot above shows the settings, I always use. When the values tends to exceed the limits (255) during the session, I reduce immediately both the gain and the exposure time.

Jupiter rocks :-)
Jupiter rotates fast! Its rotation is easily noticeable at 3850mm focal length I use. I keep the time window for each avi video file short enough to prevent smearing due to its fast rotation. I developed an application to calculate the allowed time window to capture a given planet, taking into account your telescope/camera system! You can download it here for free. See also a screenshot of it:

Figure: My telescope, eyepiece and CCD calculator

/Panagiotis

I wonder (a poem)

2011-11-09T09:17:00.000+01:00

I wonder

I wonder how come the angels fly high

while we are forced to walk

I wonder how come the stars always shine

but we see them only by night

I wonder how come six senses we've got

but we use only the eye

I wonder how come people don't ask

what's beyond the deep blue sky

---

Email: Maria.Kafritsas(@)gmail.com

Please replace the (@) with a @ to contact the author.

Weltenrausch - ein Gedicht (a poem)

2011-10-29T18:30:00.002+02:00

Ich springe zwischen den Welten

Lange bleibe ich selten

Ich singe und tanze und taumle vor Glück

Über solche Vielfalt einfach entzückt.

Jeder Mensch ein neuer Planet

Wie er lebt, liebt, wie er geht

Was er glaubt, sagt, weiß über sich
Was ich lerne mit ihm über mich.

Zurück bei mir zuhause

Froh über die Pause

Atme durch von früh bis spät

Denke zurück so viel es geht.

Kein Spiegel mehr, kein du, kein da

Alles ist anders als es mal war

Mein Stern ist einsam ohne dich

Erinnerungen halten mich.

Die Zeit verfliegt in der Ferne

Ich lebe dort aber gerne

Ein Gast bei mir, spaziert umher

Als er ankommt glaubt er sich leer.

Nun singt er und tanzt er und taumelt vor Glück

Über solche Vielfalt einfach entzückt

Ich bin erfüllt

Geh nicht.

Email: Maria.Kafritsas(@)gmail.com

Please replace the (@) with a @ to contact the author.

A Canon 7D under the stars

2011-10-05T00:56:00.000+02:00

Please, sit down and keep cool. We are talking about a hot stuff tonight.

The system consists of a Canon 7D and a telephoto lense on a Losmandy G11 mount with the Gemini GoTo system. The system is guided with a Starlight Lodestar on a small Astro-Professional ED triplet refractor. This camera is a hell of quality. Magnesium alloy, hermetically sealed against dust and moisture, the large display, a professional long life shutter (150'000 cycles!), agile knobs everywhere and a beautiful body containing 18 million pixels. If you are an astrophotographer, you will never need more pixels in a APS-C format chip. We normally use the 7D at ISO800 for 7 min. integrations during the german summer. A handful shots are usually enough to capture faint nebulas of the Milky Way. We stack them with a freeware called DeepSkyStacker. Note, the software Aperture or Photoshop are excellent to process Canon's raw CR2 files. Oh yes, we are always working with 7D's 14 bit CR2 files to keep the dynamics high. When further processing with other software packages unable to read CR2 files is required, we use 16 bit TIFF files.

Did you know? A Canon 7D is upgradable to Da (a=astrophotography) in several shops here in Germany. Additionally, an IDAS LPS v2 filter can be attached on it, to block out the light pollution.

The clip version of his filter can be attached internally in the 7D. However, there is a normal 2" version to attach it in the 48mm thread of your Canon<->WideT adapter!

That's a hot deal, since the 7D with its small 4.3mu pixels is an ideal match for short focal length refractors and telephoto lenses. Since, the achieved resolution isn't trivial, we use a separate small telescope to guide the system. The guiding camera can be controlled by the software MaximDL or CCDSoft, the de facto standards in astrophotography.

A handmade "Hartmann Mask" (the mask having three holes in the photo above) is used for focusing. The micrometer screw at the left side of the telephoto lens facilitates precise focussing. Note, the 7D is remotely controlled from the laptop by using the supplied USB cable. The excellent "Canon 200mm f/2.8L USM II" telephoto lens is used at f/3.5 to take breathtaking wide field photos of large celestial objects (e.g. dark nebulas). This is the best 200mm camera lense for astrophotography, we have ever used so far, no donuts at the corners, no vignetting. Yes, why not, this dream lense could be also used on a full frame camera (e.g. Canon 5D MkII). If you carefully look at the photos, you may find numerous parts being special customtailored products manufactured only on request.

This is the region around the star Tarazed in Aquila. Note, this is a crop of a 9 stacked (median) photos at ISO800 with 7 minutes each. No darks have been used.

Discover more details of this setup at dark.astrodigital.net

Pleiades - The Seven Sisters

2011-10-03T14:00:00.000+02:00

These are the Seven Sisters, the Pleiades complex, an open cluster in the Taurus constellation containing several blue giant stars. The most prominent of them, the Seven Sisters, are visible even with the n.aked eye.

See this photo in higher resolution at: dark.astrodigital.net. It's a single 13 minutes exposure with ISO400, at 385mm focal length (f/3.65) under suburban light pollution with an unmodified Nikon d3100 DSLR camera without any LPS filter. The photo processing has been entirely done in Aperture v3.1 (Mac).

It gets even better..
However, we experienced it get's even better if you stack many photos instead of using only one. So I did it, and I was astonished about the high quality the stacking can produce.

See my ultimate Pleiades (M45) photo in highest resolution at: dark.astrodigital.net

Data:
Median of 772+240+276+325+386+330 seconds
Nikon d3100 unmodified
FL=385mm, f/3.65, ISO400, No CLS filter
Urban light pollution

Exposure: Nikon d3100 unmodified in NEF (raw format)
Stretching & Histogram of each NEF photo: Aperture (Mac)
Alignment: MaximDL (2 stars manual)
Stacking: MaximDL (Media filter, default settings)
Histogram: Aperture (Mac)
Convert to JPG: Aperture (Mac)

It's Jupiter Time!

2011-09-27T09:39:00.001+02:00

Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system reaches its opposition to Earth in October, 29th 2011. On that day, Jupiter will reach its max. apparent size, making it ideal for observation even through small amateur telescopes. Its galilean moons and its Great Red Spot are attractive targets. Their movement is obvious during long observation sessions.

Find more Jupiter photos in my gallery at: dark.astrodigital.net

The supernova SN 2011fe in the Pinwheel Galaxy M101

2011-09-01T00:31:00.010+02:00

This is the supernova, I didn't discover ;-) The SN 2011fe in Messier 101, also called Pinwheel galaxy.

Yesterday, it was possible to observe it even through my small 4 inches telescope from my light polluted suburban area in Stuttgart, Germany. In order to prove my observation, I attached my DSLR camera and I shot this photo, where the supernova is visible. This unguided, 30 second exposure reflects my visual experience through my 18mm TakLE eyepiece. This is the brightest supernova I've ever observed.

At the moment (Sep. 1st, 2011), the ongoing supernova SN2011fe is brighter than the entire Pinwheel galaxy! It has a brightness of 10,5mag, that means it became 4 mag brighter in only 5 days, since on Aug.25th, 2011 it was significantly fainter with 14.8mag and thus only visible with bigger instruments. Note, each magnitude is about 2,5times fainter than the previous one, e.g. 11mag is 2,5 times fainter than 10mag!

I've heard from other colleagues in my astronomy club the detonation of this distant star could be strong enough to destroy everything in a radius of 30 light years around it. However this star is in a distant galaxy 19000000 (nineteen million) light years away from the Earth! So, don't worry about it. If you have a small telescope go out in the garden and don't miss this unique chance to watch a real supernova with moderate equipment. Note during your observation, you are watching a star in another galaxy! Normally, all stars you can watch with an amateur scope are in our Milky Way. But not this one.

/px

PS: New observation five months later on January 25th, 2012. Read more at: http://xipteras.blogspot.com/2012/02/pinwheel-galaxy.html

See also a wikipedia article about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SN_2011fe

Learn how to find it at: http://www.astronomind.com

Watch it blinking in high resolution at: http://www.capella-observatory.com

Sun spots in a hot afternoon

2011-08-25T09:59:00.007+02:00

This photo has been taken at 820mm focal length using a Nikon d3100 DSLR camera. A Baader astrosolar foil has been used. This cropped image almost expresses the visual experience through the scope. It captured in Nikon's NEF (RAW) format to prevent data loss, a well known problem of JPEG files. The software Aperture v3.1 (Mac) has been used for further processing.

See a high resolution photo at http://dark.astrodigital.net

See also the same sun spots few days ago at http://www.astrovox.gr

M63 .. four years ago

2011-07-20T22:37:00.012+02:00

This is an old unpublished photo of the Sunflower galaxy Messier 63 I made four years ago. I discovered it today on .. my harddisk, and I decided to upload it on this blog. This was the last photo I made with my Losmandy G11 mount at that time. It was a hard job, since I had to stay awake three nights, till my SBIG ST-7XME and the FS-102 (f/5.9) telescope encountered enough of the 37.000.000 years old photons arrived from these distant worlds.

Dark clouds in space

2011-07-07T22:58:00.003+02:00

This is the dark nebula Barnard 111 in the Scutum constellation.

High resolution=> http://www.astrovox.gr/forum/album_pic.php?pic_id=13021

The Wild Duck Cluster

2011-07-04T22:23:00.008+02:00

This is the open cluster M11 in the constellation of Scutum. Messier 11 somehow looks like an globular cluster but it isn't. It consists of many middle aged stars.

This is the full field version 3° 25' x 2° 15'. Notice the dark nebulas around M11.

Full resolution at http://dark.astrodigital.net/p580472150/e3357464e

Diamonds in the sky

2011-06-28T23:59:00.009+02:00

This is the double cluster in Perseus. It is called h + chi and it contains over 600 blue giant stars. More information at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Cluster

See my astrophoto in high resolution at www.astrovox.gr or at dark.astrodigital.net

When I am working on such delightful celestial objects, I sometimes think astrophotography is a pre-stage of poetry. The astrophotographer, invests all his experience trying to interpret a fact into a shapes and colors, so a poet tries to interpret his emotions after looking that pictures into wonderful words.

/px

My autoguiding settings are here :-)

2011-06-21T23:11:00.005+02:00

Yes, it works! These are the settings for my autoguider. The graph is smooth (if nobody is jumping next to the mount ;-) and I could expect good photographic results with it.
..and now live during the download of the light frame ... (hertzklopf klopf klopf :-)))

The software "Point An Object" can be download here for free.

Moon eclipse - Mondfinsternis 2011

2011-06-16T00:22:00.011+02:00

June, 15th 2011 - 22:23 MEST

You are also welcome to visit my Moon Eclipse 2011 gallery at:

http://dark.astrodigital.net/p757250054

Clear skies from Germany

Panagiotis

Trying to capture Saturn with a color webcam

2011-04-17T23:43:00.036+02:00

The planet Saturn has currently a brightness of 1.04 mag and an apparent size of 19.2". I tried to capture it using my TIS DBK21 One-Shot-Color webcam on my 21cm (f/11.5) Dall Kirkham cassegrain telescope in order to find out the most appropriate focal length for this application. The DBK21 cam uses the same chip as the popular Philips ToUcam 840k Pro. However both the electronics and the mechanical construction are excellent on the DBK21. Considering the low brightness of Saturn (compared to Jupiter, the Moon or the Sun) and the permanent bad seeing at my roof observatory, it was useful to get some experience on using this webcam to capture Saturn with my telescope. The goal is to find the "golden ratio" between the focal length and frame rate to get best possible results on Saturn.

f/11.5

Image 1: a single unprocessed frame

f/11.5 @ 27 frames per second. Focal length was 2415mm. No extenders. Notice: Quick enough to freeze the seeing. Too small planet disc but very bright. No problem to increase the frame rate.

The following data have been calculated with the program AstroDigital.Net
Model: Takahashi Mewlon 210 (f/11,5)
Focal length [mm]: 2415
Critical Focus Zone [mu]: 290,95
Model: DBK 21AF04
Pixel size [x*y]: 5,6 x 5,6
Chip size [x*y]: 640 x 480
Chip diagonal [mm]: 6,08
Chip surface [qmm]: 18,26
Wavelength [nm]: 550
Telescope illumination power: 1,102345E-05
FOV: 0° 5' 6'' x 0° 3' 50''
Image scale: > 0,48 x 0,48

f/18.4

Image 2: a single unprocessed frame

Image 3: 5000 frames added and processed (AVIStack, Giotto, MaximDL)

Image 4: The setup

f/18.4 @ 19 frames per second. Focal length was 3864mm. ExtenderNQ (1.6x). Planet disk is large enough to show details under good seeing conditions. The frame rate is high enough to freeze the seeing. The planet disc is bright enough.

Model: Takahashi Mewlon 210 (f/18,4)
Focal length [mm]: 3864
Critical Focus Zone [mu]: 744,83
Model: Takahashi Extender 1.6x
Model: DBK 21AF04/21BF04
Telescope illumination power: 4,306035E-06
FOV: 3' 11'' x 2' 23''

f/28.7

Image 5: a single unprocessed frame

f/28.7 @ 9 frames per second. Focal length was 6037mm. Televue Powermate 2.5x. Notice: Too dark on Saturn, too slow to freeze the seing. Big planet disk.

Model: Takahashi Mewlon 210 (/28,8)
Focal length [mm]: 6037
Critical Focus Zone [mu]: 1818,44
Model: Televue Powermate 2,5x
Multiplier [times]: 2,5
Model: DBK 21AF04/21BF04
Telescope illumination power: 1,763752E-06
FOV: 2' 2'' x 1' 32''
Image scale: > 0,19 x 0,19

Backnang's star party 2011

2011-04-12T23:49:00.028+02:00

Dear guest, welcome to the photo gallery of our Star Party 2011 ..

..in Backnang, Germany.

The moon is still up and running

Vixen ED102 on a green Vixen GP

Two SkyWatchers are gazing the night sky

Happy faces, good scopes

Most of the guests were observing the planet Saturn at that night. The photo above corresponds to a typical view of Saturn through a big dobson telescope. It has been taken some hours after the event.

A 20cm f/5 newton telescope. Mike said, he had the best view of M42 in his life, as he observed it with this scope on the Alps/Austria 10 years ago.

A Meade LX10 ready to go.

Markus the APOD guy as he sets up his INTES 18cm Maksutov telescope.

Two Lightbridges look the sky.

Gerd at the 76cm dobson telescope. This was once the biggest portable telescope in Europe! John Dobson signed it during his stay in Fellbach/Germany a couple of years ago. It belongs to the Backnanger Sterngucker. You can observe some deepsky objects in color with it! (I'm not kidding!)

The eye of the tiger: a 400mm dobson telescope.

Mike is setting up his unbelievable 30cm dobson telescope.

Dennis with his fine tuned 37cm Dob.

An apple a day ... catches light at night! :-))))

Oh yes! My Nikon and me were also there ;-)

Kind regards and clear nights to the world wide astronomy community from Backnang, Germany. /Panagiotis

Galaxy hunting with a 4 inch scope.

2011-04-03T12:41:00.017+02:00

On April 2nd, 2011 Holger and me saddled up my FS-102 telescope on his Losmandy Gemini G11 mount to go for galaxy gazing. Holger made a special adapter to mount my Takahashi on his Losmandy mount, since he is able to manufacture such customized astronomical parts in his workshop. Holger receives orders and delivers in all european countries.

Ok, let's go back to the scope. At the beginning I was wondering, what could we observe with only 4 inches of aperture, but I was surprised to see that all galaxies (in high altitudes) brighter that 10 mag were observable from our village in Germany!

First, we visited the constellation of Virgo...

The galaxy M100 in Virgo looked like a dusty disk with a clear oval form. I invoked the software SkySafari on the iPhone to get some information about this object since we hadn't a laptop with us. Yes, it should have a bulky structure.. "I think, I see some structure now" Holger said!

Some of the brightest galaxies of the well known Marcarian Chain in the Virgo constellation were also easy to observe.

The galaxies M65, M66 were visible on the FS-102 even using a cheap chinese 20mm UW eyepiece. As I increased the magnification by putting a japanese 12mm TakLE eyepiece on the APO everything changed. Both galaxies stood up, yes they were there indeed! Even their faint companion NGC3628 with its elongated form was observable. Note, NGC3628 was practical invisible through the cheap eyepiece.

Therefore we decided to continue our observation with the Takahashi eyepiece. We hadn't time to loose with the cheap eyepieces.

M95, M96 and their companions M105 and NGC3384 were all observable.

The double star Algieba showed nice difraction rings at 283x magnification.

After that, we visited the constellation of Coma Berenices...

M64 - The Black Eye Galaxy: The black eye was visible (looking indirectly at it) by using the TakLE 12mm eyepiece (magnification 68x). It was towards the bright star in the same FOV. Several photos in the web confirmed this.

Saturn was high in the south so we decided to visit it as well. Its rings were marvelous through the doublet. A small part of the Cassini division was visible at the sides of the rings at a magnification of 283x. Two bands were clearly visible, but we couldn't detect the Serpent storm circling the planet.

Observing Saturn with two different scopes

2011-04-01T22:21:00.010+02:00

On March, 3rd 2011 I observed the planet Saturn trying to compare the views through two literally incomparable scopes; a Mewlon-210 reflector with a 25mm TAL Koenig eyepiece and a FSQ106ED (f/5) refractor with a 5mm Tak-LE eyepiece. Since the seeing was terrible and the sky was quite polluted at that night, the view through the refractor were steadier, sharper and more pleasant than through the reflector. However, I could observe one dim star through the Mewlon, that was invisible with the New-Q. Size does matter. The background had the same brightness on both scopes, but the Mewlon was equipped with a Baader Neodymium light pollution filter. I tried to go up with the magnification on Saturn. After trying to extend the native 530mm focal length of the refractor using a perfect Televue Powermate 2.5x, I observed some false color at 265x on Saturn. No, it was not the Powermate. Obviously, visual observers do need the Extender-Q accessory for planetary work. The Mewlon couldn't handle this magnification due to the atmosphaeric conditions.

Two weeks later, I decided to put the dedicated 1.6x NQ extender on the FSQ-106ED and try it on Saturn. Note, this magic part is much more than a simple barlow lens. It corrects the violet/ultraviolet spectrum for photographic applications, i.e. the blue stars do NOT bloat any more. Moreover, it provides a planet-friendly focal ratio of f/8 by also making the FSQ super-apochromatic and hence comparable with the TOA series. High magnifications of 236x are possible with the NewQ extender. Color free.

On Saturn the views are very sharp, crystal clear and a lot steadier than through a larger scope. One can see permanently Saturn's Cassini division on the entire field of view by using a 5mm LE eyepiece. This is amazing and in some way confirms the specification saying it provides a 44m flat field also suitable for photographic use.

Let's go back to the Mewlon again.. In fact, at that night I didn't want to compare it against the Q, since I know the abilities of the μ very well. The views are breathtaking when the seeing conditions permit it. I know what I am talking about. I have observed M13, M11, several galaxies and the planets with this reflector and I still can't forget the views through it. Aperture counts. So, I attached my old DBK21USB on it and I took a videoclip. After processing it with Giotto-software.de -a great german software piece for photo stacking- I was able to see the current storm on Saturn!!! :-) It's called "the Serpent Storm", see below:

Some astronomers say "the first four inches are the most important" but I think aperture still counts. That's the law of physics. cs px

The Serpent Storm on Saturn

2011-03-23T18:59:00.016+01:00

A prominent storm erupted late 2010 in Saturn' northern hemisphere. It's called The Serpent Storm and it still rounds the planet. Its appearance changed over the last months, covering sometimes large areas of the northern hemisphere.

March 20th 2011, 21:39 GMT: The Serpent Storm is behind the planet, i.e invisible from the Earth. Photo: Mewlon 210, f/11.5, FL=2415mm, Camera=TIS DBK21USB, approx. 6000 shots, 2x digital zoom, RGB:

One day later .. March 21th 2011, 21:36 GMT: The Serpent Storm is visible from the Earth! Photo: Mewlon 210, f/11.5, FL=2415mm, Camera=TIS DBK21USB, 120 of 6000 shots stacked, 2x digital zoom, GRGB composite created from the basic RGB data with MaximDL.

In the photo above, the Serpent Storm is visible at approx. 100° of longitude. The atmosphere of Saturn mostly consists of hydrogen and helium. Its banded structure is noticeable with good amateur telescopes, since the saturnian bands look fainter than Jupiter‘s, and the planet has twice the distance of Jupiter and it is smaller than it. Observing data: Saturn: Apparent size=19,2“ / Apparent brightness=1,03mag / Distance=1.292.000.000 km

The Marcarian Chain in Virgo

2011-03-17T00:31:00.013+01:00

This is the star field around the Marcarian Chain in the constellation of Virgo: click here for full resolution (10 MB). The exposure time was only 2 x 100s ! The equipment used is listed below. The photographer used an unmodified Nikon d3100 DSLR camera without any light pollution filter in suburban area to shoot this photo.

The jet of the galaxy M87 is almost visible, if you zoom in the photo above. Follow the yellow lines below:

Here is a flow chart how to process your DSLR photo material:

A Nikon d3100 camera under the stars

2011-03-03T21:25:00.016+01:00

What must be, will be! My old ST-7 astrocamera has a tiny chip, my telescope screams for something larger and any dedicated astrocamera (even a chinese one!) does not fit my budget. Since I aim to shoot astrophotos in the next time, I decided to attach my unmodified Nikon d3100 DSLR on the scope. By the way, I wonder why astrocameras still represent a long-time capital investment ;-) In fact, normal astrocameras are simpler and easier to build than normal DSLRs but they are still much more expensive than them. Anyway, last night I had the chance to test this DSLR on the FSQ106ED equipped with the dedicated f/3.65 focal reducer. The recommended adapter train consisting of a Nikon->WideT->CA35(Sky90) has been used to mount the DSLR on the scope. This has been done in order to keep the optimal distance between the CCD sensor and the reducer. Fortunately, this adapter combination is sturdy, compact and easy to use. I observed a hint of vignetting on the RAW photos, but at the moment I have no idea where it comes from. Never mind.

Messier 3 - The globular cluster in Canes Venatici

Yesterday, the seeing was bad and I had again to deal with the heavy light pollution (LP) of my site in Germany. I decided to capture Messier 3, the globular cluster in the constellation of Canes Venatici.

Since, I still don't own a LP filter I had to reduce the exposure time down to 101 seconds @ISO400 and to process the results harder with Aperture 3 on my Mac. Therefore, I captured all astrophotos in NEF (Nikon's RAW) format in order to prevent data loss, a well known problem of JPG files. Nikon's NEF format offers more processing options and greater dynamics in later stages. Aperture 3 fully supports Nikon's NEF format. You can see the results here (size 3,5MB).

A cropped version is shown below:

Messier 13 - The globular cluster in Hercules

PS: In August 2011 I shot this photo of M13 with another telescope; a Tak FS-102 (f/8). It's a crop of 3x30s stacked exposures at ISO1600 in NEF format. A high resolution photo is available here.

Photoshop users: NEF files must be converted in DNG format to be further processed in Photoshop. A good converter is here: http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=4923. As far as I know, Nikon's ViewNX software could also convert the NEF files in a photoshop readable format.

Orion sinks in the light pollution

2011-02-22T23:23:00.011+01:00

In fact, I wanted to show you the southern sky from my site in this post. After several short shots with my new Nikon d3100 I noticed that the light pollution in my site leads to terrible results, i.e. strong gradients. Unfortunately, non-celestial light sources gave my photos a terrible orange tone/gradient at night.
I tried to correct the gradients in photoshop with a technique I described here and I produced the cropped photo above. Remember this is only one 20 seconds shot at f/3.5 and ISO 1600 without any LPS filter on a green Vixen GP mount. It shows the Orion constellation in the southern sky as seen from my observatory in Stuttgart. My new Nikon d3100 with its standard 18-55mm lense had its first light at that night. However for me, the heavy light pollution makes a Hutech IDAS LPS P2 filter inevitable from now on to continue with DSLR astrophotography. The processed version of the entire photo available here (5 MB) looks much better than the unprocessed one but we are agreed ... photo processing can not replace a dark sky! Watch a film about light pollution at: http://youtu.be

Please visit: http://www.darksky.org

Autoguiding through the clouds

2011-02-14T21:33:00.012+01:00

Unfortunately, in the last three nights the weather in South Germany was unsuitable for astrophotography. The atmospharic conditions and the seeing were bad. The moon light also produced strong gradients in the photos. However, even through the cirrostratus clouds, it was possible to test in some way my autoguiding system now consisting of an old SBIG ST7 on my small FS-60C telescope.

The spiral galaxy on the screen is the M101 in Ursa Major, captured in a 2 minutes exposure at 365mm FL (f/6). The peaks of the guiding curve are evidence of the bad seeing at that night.

Watch the autoguiding in action!

These are the autoguiding parameters used. They seem to work pretty well but I think, it is reasonable to repeat the autoguiding test under better weather conditions in the future.

The galaxy pair shown above is the M51 with its companion NGC5195 in the constellation of Ursa Major. This unguided photo has been literally shot through the clouds (!) with my 21cm cassegrain telescope at f/11.5 and the ST7XME in only 2x3 minutes.

Sunspots on January, 31th 2011

2011-02-02T21:54:00.003+01:00

How to sharp the Sun

2011-02-02T09:46:00.004+01:00

These are the settings I used recently in GIOTTO to process my Sun photo. On the left side you see the unprocessed summed photo. On the right side is the sharpened result.

Schroter's Valley on the Moon

2011-01-19T18:34:00.007+01:00

Schroter's Valley is the greatest lava formation on the Moon. It is 160km long, about 11km wide and 1 km deep. It looks like canyons on Earth. You can observe it even with a small telescope, only 25 km north of Herodotus. It begins with a small crater called "Cobrahead". Note: You need a pair of 3D glasses to see the stereoscopic astrophoto above. Here is a guide, how to make one yourself: http://www.astrodigital.net/imageprocessing/simple_3d/simple_3d.html

All data to process an astrophoto are available

2011-01-16T02:34:00.018+01:00

HaRGB Composite: Lern how to compose a color photo from its Ha-Red-Green-Blue components.

Please find attached a zip file with the complete data set of an astrophoto of the Tadpoles nebula in Auriga. All processing steps and the corresponding results are organized in separated directories. Useful tips about deep sky photo processing are shown here and here. Download it right now for free. Just click on the following link: NGC1893 Photo processing steps for educational purposes.zip (packed file size: 68 MB). You need special astrophotographic software to process this file. Try Maxim DL - (Windows, 30 days trial version available) or CCDOps - (Mac / Windows, freeware) or CCDSoft - (Windows). The raw data have been gained over three nights from the author's backyard observatory.

The Pacman nebula

2011-01-14T01:28:00.003+01:00

The galaxy NGC2403 in Camelopardalis

2011-01-09T14:20:00.002+01:00

The beauty and the beast

2011-01-06T23:01:00.007+01:00

This is a GSO 10" RC telescope on a Celestron CGE Pro mount. The camera is a SBIG ST8300 connected via a selfmade custom adapter to a STL 8 positions 2" filter wheel equiped with Astrodon L,R,G,B,NIR and Baader Ha,SII,OIII filters. The autoguider is a Starlight Lodestar. This system belongs to a friend.

Sun Eclipse SoFi Sonnenfinsternis 4 January 2011

2011-01-04T09:43:00.013+01:00

This is the Sun Eclipse on January, 4th 2011 at 9:18 o'clock as observed from Stuttgart, Germany. See also Wikipedia.

In German: Das ist eine Aufnahme von der Sonnenfinsternis am 4 Januar 2011 um 09:18 Uhr aus Stuttgart. Siehe auch Wikipedia's Artikel.

This is the view through a russian TAL Koenig 25mm eyepiece on a japanese Tak FS-60C telescope with the mandatory german Baader Astrosolar foil.

A happy new year!

2010-12-31T21:23:00.000+01:00

The first 4 inches are the most important

2010-12-31T14:53:00.002+01:00

Apochromatic telescopes with an aperture of four inches are prooved to be very useful both in stationary and in portable use.

One or two inches, please?

2010-12-30T14:51:00.003+01:00

That's a comparison between an old 1" Bresser and a new 2" Televue diagonal attached to the very sharp Takahashi FS-78 of Mr. Kostantin K. in Germany.

The Moon Terminator

2010-12-22T23:14:00.002+01:00

A beautiful telescope

2010-12-12T01:50:00.023+01:00

Let's get a look at this beautiful telescope. This new astrophotographic system belongs to a friend. It consists of a:

photographic optimized self-made 8 inch Newton with an Orion-UK mirror. Its tube is 4mm thick. It has been made of a special paper-fibre-resin based compound.
tuned QHY8Pro (ALLCCD6Pro) one-shot-color camera with front-element-heater, filled with noble-gas,
b/w guider camera sitting on a tuned off-axis-guider
computerized TRUTEK filter wheel with L, Ha, SII, OIII filters.
Losmandy G11 mount with Gemini Goto and an original Losmandy polar finder scope.
high-tech ASA Focuser and a 3 inches ASA focal reducer.
power supply and the cable station
and a powerful Windows-7 (64Bit) laptop computer managing all the stuff above.

Here is the very first image taken with this amazing scope. Ladies and Gentlemen, this is a 10 second test exposure of the seven sisters. Here are the Pleiades !

M35: The open star cluster in Gemini

2010-12-11T12:36:00.002+01:00

M57 - The Ring Nebula

2010-12-07T00:40:00.004+01:00

M51- The Whirlpool Galaxy

2010-11-29T00:03:00.002+01:00

Castor: The six-pack in Gemini

2010-11-08T23:44:00.007+01:00

Alpha Geminorum is a sextuple star system with six individual stars gravitationally bound together. It is approx. 50 light years away from us.

Links: Wikipedia

The price for your patience is a better photo

2010-10-30T22:15:00.011+02:00

Please sit down and watch this! This is the price for the patience of some astrophotographers. The difference in S/N (signal-to-noise) ratio and the count of visible details is really noticable if you compare both Ha narrowband photos of NGC1893 in Auriga shown above. The first astrophoto is the result of an exposure of 960 seconds. The second one is a median stack of 5 x 960 seconds 2 x 600 seconds. It's incredible isn't it? The original high resolution picture can be found at https://files.me.com/xipteras/2ncnxf

AstroDigital.Net on the Kindle

2010-10-28T22:36:00.004+02:00

This is my homepage on the Kindle ebook reader of amazon.com. The Kindle is thin, light, portable and suitable to read ebooks. The 3G version is Internet capable.

Astrophoto processing guides for MaximDL

2010-10-24T20:43:00.008+02:00

Some helpful guides for working with MaximDL are available in my site:

/Panagiotis

NGC2404 is a nebula in the galaxy NGC2403

2010-10-23T22:30:00.019+02:00

This is an underexposed test photo of the galaxy NGC2403 in the Camelopardalis constellation. The integration ime was 3x3 minutes on each LRGB channel at f/3.6. It has been 2x digitally zoomed in MaximDL.

NGC2404 is a nebulous region in the external galaxy NGC2403. This faint object is located in the Camelopardalis constellation. The 3rd astrophoto shown above is one 16 minutes exposure at 385mm FL at f/3.6 using an SBIG ST-7XME NABG astrocamera under the light polluted skies. It has been digitally 2x zoomed with the software MaximDL. The spikes are overflowed pixels caused from bright stars due to the missing antiblooming gates of the used astrocamera.

The autoguider settings in CCDSoft

2010-10-14T21:46:00.009+02:00

These are the settings I am using for the system described in the categories below. You may also consult the CCDWare autoguider calculator to find out the proper settings for yours.

The double star 6Tri in Triangulum

2010-10-11T08:43:00.008+02:00

This is the double star 6Tri in the Triangulum constellation. It is also called "TZ Tri" and it is 305 light years away from us. Amateur astronomers can identify two stars with a brightsness of 5.15 and 6.55 magnitudes and a separation of 4" arcseconds. It is well observed through an amateur telescope at a magnification of 200x. The photo above has been taken at 2415mm focal length and it has been digitally x2 zoomed.

The sunspot AR11108

2010-09-19T15:29:00.007+02:00

The open cluster NGC1893 in Auriga

2010-09-06T23:38:00.006+02:00

NGC7790 in Cassiopeia

2010-09-03T01:26:00.004+02:00

Digitally 2x zoomed. Exposed in June 2010. Data: Luminance= 2 x 2 minutes at -19°C CCD sensor temperature.

NGC281 in Cassiopeia

2010-08-29T23:14:00.010+02:00

This is a test photo of the Pac Man nebula in Cassiopeia, as captured with the 106mm, f/3.6 telescope in only 10 minutes: R=3 min, G=3 min, B=4min. This photo is the first light of the scope with the reducer. The camera was an old SBIG ST-7XME NABG with a small but sensitive chip. This scope screams for a larger chip! Note, the composite above is only a pure RGB without any portion of Ha. The camera shows much noise at this low temperature of -15°C. A water cooling would be very helpful especially in the summer.

The open cluster NGC1342 in Perseus

2010-08-24T00:18:00.005+02:00

The open cluster NGC1342 in Perseus under heavy light pollution conditions. (Test photo)

Barbeque in the Plattenwald forest

2010-08-22T11:59:00.002+02:00

This is the www.bksterngucker.de team from Backnang. They own a 30 inches Dobson telescope. This is one of the biggest portable telescopes in Europe. Yesterday, they had a barbeque in the Plattewald forest near Backnang/Germany.

The neighborhood of Perseus A

2010-08-17T00:48:00.016+02:00

This is the area around the galaxy "Perseus-A" in the constellation of Perseus. This galaxy as part of the Perseus galaxy cluster is about 240.000.000 light years away from our milky way. It is a well known radio source. The Perseus galaxy cluster consists of about 500 galaxies.

Unfortunately, the test photo above is not as sharp as it should be, since the telescope was slightly out of focus during the image aquisition. The integration time was 2 x 10 minutes using a 4 inches f/3.6 telescope (second light), this was not long enough to capture its numerous details.

M33 Triangulum Galaxy (First light)

2010-08-11T00:31:00.016+02:00

This is the first light with the 4 inches telescope. The focussing works well in spite of its tight CFZ at f/3.65. The optics are approx. 3 times faster than my previous FS102@f/6. Well, the results look quite promising, although the FOV with the old ST7 is very small indeed. It is less than 1°. The photo is taken during the full moon phase. Hence, strong gradients are detectable in this photo. The color versions are composites of Red=3x3min, Green=3x3min, Blue=3x4min, L=10+3*3min.

How to process Jupiter with GIOTTO

2010-08-09T10:21:00.006+02:00

These are the settings I used recently to process my Jupiter photo. The software you see is http://www.giotto-software.de/ available in german language. Don't forget to make a "white balance" with MaximDL after finishing it.

RGB vs. RRGB in planet photography

2010-08-09T10:10:00.006+02:00

If you are a planet photographer and you make video sequenses with a color webcam, I have a good tip for you. After adding the avi video stream with GIOTTO or Registax, separate the R/G/B channels with MaximDL or GIOTTO. Copy the R channel to a new file to use it as luminance. Finally load all four files in CCDSoft to make a RRGB composite. You can compare the results on the photo above.

The RRGB processing brings out invisible details of a RGB photo. My RRGB composite above is sharper than the RGB although I think the RGB has better colors than the RRGB. One problem I can mention, is that the red channel as luminance can not match the green or blue details of the planet. Normally, a "real" luminance channel should match all the colors of a RGB photo. That's not the case in RRGB. But as you know, the red channel is immune against atmospharic turbulences, this is the reason why in MY case the red channel shows more details than the green channel. The bayer mask of an OSC cam has two green pixels but only one red pixel. Hence the green channel could better serve as a luminance channel under perfect seeing conditions (in the space ;-). I think so. If a reader has a suggestion please comments this topic. Thanks.

Observing Jupiter from the roof window

2010-08-09T10:01:00.009+02:00

Last week, the seeing was surprising good here in South Germany, so I decided to observe Jupiter with my Takahashi Mewlon 210 telescope. The views of this planet were stunning indeed, even at the high magnification of 300x using a Takahashi 7mm LE eyepiece. After this observation, I decided to attach my Imaging-Source DBK21 color webcam on the telescope and to take some photos. I made several avi files. Each one of them had 1GB of data, so it wasn't an easy task to process them with my 5 years old 2GHz PC.

The storms on Jupiter

2010-08-02T00:37:00.011+02:00

Last night, the seeing was surprising good here in South Germany, so I decided to observe Jupiter with my Takahashi Mewlon 210 telescope. The views of this planet were stunning indeed, even at the high magnification of 300x using a Takahashi 7mm LE eyepiece. After this observation, I decided to attach my Imaging-Source DBK21 color webcam on the telescope and to take some photos.

Here you can see the results.
You can see even the storms on the planet. It is amazing, isn't?
Made in Stuttgart on July 31th, 2010 with a Mewlon 210 telescope at 6000mm focal length. All pictures are RRGB composites. An animation of the above photo series is available in my site at http://www.astrodigital.net/projects/projects.html / Chapter "Jupiter"

Venus after the sunset

2010-07-27T23:49:00.005+02:00

The planet Venus after the sunset as observed from my roof observatory in Germany. The bad local seeing conditions and the low altitude of the planet in the horizon are blooring the photo. Anyway, the Venus phase is still clearly visible.

M2 in Aquarius

2010-07-11T01:42:00.003+02:00

The planetary nebula Pease1 in M15

2010-07-05T00:43:00.003+02:00

The moon in a hot summer afternoon in Greece

2010-07-04T14:21:00.002+02:00

M2 - a globular cluster in Aquarius

2010-07-03T02:01:00.006+02:00

This is a live report from my roof observatory in Germany. I am currently observing the globular cluster M2 in the Aquarius constellation. The photo above has been taken few minutes ago with my FS-102 (f/5.6) telescope at 560 mm focal length. This is a 10 minutes exposure with a ST7XME camera on an unguided JPZ mount under the light polluted skies of BK city. A dark has been substracted. Neither flats nor bias are used.

M15 - a globular cluster in Pegasus

2010-07-03T00:38:00.009+02:00

This is a live report from my roof observatory in Germany. I am currently observing the globular cluster M15 in the Pegasus constellation. The photo above has been taken few minutes ago with my FS-102 (f/5.6) telescope at 560 mm focal length. This is a 3 minutes exposure with a ST7XME camera on an unguided JPZ mount under the light polluted skies of BK city. A dark has been substracted. Neither flats nor bias are used.

Blog.AstroDigital.Net on your iPhone / iPad

2010-06-10T00:16:00.008+02:00

Use the following address to access my blog:
http://xipteras.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Deneb's rich neighbourhood

2010-06-06T23:24:00.006+02:00

This is the neighbourhood of Deneb, a bright star in the Cygnus constellation best visible in the summer nights of the north hemisphere. This is a single 20 minutes unguided shot at 560mm FL and 9 mu pixels (resolution 3,2 arcsec per pixel). The spikes of the bright stars are a camera artifact produced due to the missing antiblooming gate in that astrocamera. The absence of these ABG gates noticably increases the sensitivity of the camera system.

When we observe Deneb, we see inside the arm of our Milky Way. This region is full of stars and dark nebulas (see up/left side).

Comet McNaught C/2009 R1

2010-06-06T01:15:00.014+02:00

This is photo of today morning showing the comet McNaught C/2009 R1. Visual magnitude:+7.4 mag. Distance: 179'900'000 km. Telescope: FS-102 (F/5.6), Camera: ST7XME NABG binned 2x2, Integration: 1x5 Min, No Guiding, Software: MaximDL, CCDSoft, PSE

This is a video showing the motion of McNaught.

M5 Serpentis - a globular star cluster

2010-05-25T22:04:00.004+02:00

M12: A globular cluster reloaded

2010-05-19T23:41:00.005+02:00

Mond and Venus in the twilight

2010-05-16T21:52:00.007+02:00

The Moon and Venus as observed from my roof observatory in Germany on May, 16th 2010 at 21:35 MEST. Camera: Nikon Coolpix 4500, 1 second exposure at ISO800, f/5.1, No guiding

M12 a globular star cluster in Ophiuchus

2010-05-11T22:03:00.004+02:00

This is the globular cluster M12 in the Ophiuchus constellation. Notice the faint galaxy pair next to this cluster at 2:30 o'clock. The brightest galaxy of this pair is called PGC1103219

91% of Venus is illuminated

2010-04-29T22:41:00.002+02:00

The Antares region in Scorpio

2010-04-25T23:11:00.004+02:00

http://astroholgi.blogspot.com/

A volcanic sunset

2010-04-19T23:40:00.003+02:00

.. caused by an eruption of Iceland's volcano Eyjafjallajokull

Observing the galaxy NGC5962 in Serpers

2010-04-11T20:14:00.011+02:00

Hi all, yesterday night the sky was very clear in my location in Germany. The star "19 Ursa Minoris" in the north with a brightness of 5.48 magnitudes was clearly visible with the naked eye from my roof observatory. I decided to cool down my compact 21cm dall kirkham cassegrain telescope to go for galaxy search. Yes, the spiral galaxy NGC5962 in Serpens with an apparent size of 2,5"x1,6" and a brightness of 11,44 magnitudes was indirectly visible(!) throught my telescope. This is the faintest galaxy I have ever observed with the Mewlon from my roof observatory! I used a "Baader Moonlight and Skyglow" filter to eliminate the heavy light pollution coming from BK-City in the east..

Observing the planetary nebula NGC4563

2010-04-08T23:04:00.006+02:00

On April, 8th 2010 I observed the CatEye planetary nebula in Draco using my 21cm DK telescope. Althought it is quite small, I observed at 300x some structures inside this nebula. This has been confirmed with my test photo below:

At a 60x magnification, I could also observe the galaxy NGC6503 (10,2mag) in Draco. It was like ax quite small cigar but it was still observable even from my light poluted site. That didn't happen with its fainter "neighbour" galaxy NGC6654 (11,84mag).

Orion over Stuttgart

2010-04-05T23:40:00.004+02:00

Venus and Mercury in the horizon

2010-04-05T23:38:00.004+02:00

Canis Major over Stuttgart

2010-04-05T23:17:00.003+02:00

This is the constellation of Canis Major over the city of Stuttgart in Germany. The brightest star in the centre is Sirius.

Saturn and Moons

2010-04-04T19:41:00.007+02:00

This is the ring planet Saturn on March, 25th 2010 at 0:40 CET:

Four of its moons are visible in the following high contrast photo:

Titan: 8,8 mag - Dione: 10,8 mag - Tethys: 10,6 mag - Saturn: 1 mag - Rhea: 10,1 mag

Together again: Venus and Mercury

2010-04-01T22:21:00.007+02:00

Both inner planets of our solar system are visible these weeks in the west after the sunset. Their best approach will be on April 5th, 2010. Don't miss it! This photo is taken from my observatory in Germany using an old Nikon Coolpix 4500 (4 seconds at ISO400).

Several reflection nebulas in Orion

2010-03-20T00:04:00.006+01:00

This M38 is not a screw thread ;-)

2010-03-17T22:41:00.005+01:00

M41 through the kitchen window

2010-03-06T00:25:00.002+01:00

This is the open cluster M41 as observed yesterday night through the closed window of my kitchen. A tiny 6cm scope is used to shoot this photo.

NGC3115 has a massive black hole

2010-03-01T22:47:00.003+01:00

NGC4565: An edge-on galaxy

2010-02-25T23:38:00.004+01:00

NGC2129-The forgotten star cluster in Gemini

2010-02-09T23:44:00.003+01:00

How to search for faint objects near M27

2010-02-02T22:37:00.007+01:00

Are you looking for the Dumbbell Nebula (M27) or some really faint objects in its neighborhood? Don't look further. Here is a guide how to do it.

1. Visit the "STScI"to gain the coordinates of M27:

http://archive.stsci.edu/cgi-bin/dss_form

2. Visit the site to search:

http://www.messier45.com/cgi-bin/dsdb/dsb.pl

Enter the coordinates you retrieved from step (1) in the search field:

19 59 36.34 +22 43 16.1

and press the enter key:

3. Ready!

The Red Planet

2010-01-26T22:11:00.004+01:00

M31 - Ultra high resolution

2010-01-24T21:43:00.006+01:00

FULL RESOLUTION CLICK HERE (X)

Copyright (c) 2009-2010 by Holger Weber
==
Equipment:
Strong modified GSO carbon newton 200mm f/5 w. Starlight-FeatherTouch
CCD camera: AllCCD9Pro color
Mount: Losmandy G11 w. Gemini GOTO
Description: This mosaic consists of 4 segments
Guiding: Watec CCD on SkyWatcher Maksutov
Copyright by Holger Weber, Germany
Co-Author of http://blog.astrodigital.net
Software: Deep-Sky-Stacker (DRIZZLE stacking method)

Processing Mars OSC photos in RRGB...

2010-01-24T00:15:00.009+01:00

Tonight, I would like to show you how I processed my recent Mars photos. The RRGB (Red-Red-Green-Blue) technique is applied. All photos are made with a user friendly One-Shot-Color WebCam (model: TIS DBK12 USB)!

YES! You can increase the resolution of your Mars photos using this planet processing technique. Here is a screenshot of my computer desktop during practicing it. This technique is an idea I have had a couple of hours ago. It seems to work!

Description:

Capture your planet as a video stream (avi file) in the allowed time window according to the resolution of your telescope+webcam combination, the planet (i.e. Mars) and its apparent size in the firmament. If you want to find out how long you can record the planet in a single avi file without to have a smearing effect caused by the planet rotation then run my free software "AstroDigital.Net". It computes it!
Stack your avi file by using the GIOTTO software. The result is the automatically generated .FITS color file "resultcopy" in the same directory as your avi file.
Sharp your resultcopy file by using the GIOTTO software. Save the result in a .FITS color file called "resultcopy_sharp_390.fits":

Load the color file resultcopy_sharp_390.fits in MaximDL. Make a TriColor split to separate the three sharped channels R,G,B. Save them in your harddisk as:

resultcopy_sharp_390-R.fits
resultcopy_sharp_390-G.fits
resultcopy_sharp_390-B.fits

Duplicate the resultcopy_sharp_390-R.fits file as resultcopy_sharp_390-L.fits (L means Luminance, i.e. we will use the red channel as luminance) in the Windows Explorer window.
Load the resultcopy.fits in MaximDL. Make a TriColor split to separate the three channels R,G,B. Save them in your harddisk as:
1. resultcopy_390-R.fits
2. resultcopy_390-G.fits
3. resultcopy_390-B.fits
Load the files resultcopy_sharp_390-L.fits , resultcopy_sharp_390-R.fits, resultcopy_sharp_390-G.fits, resultcopy_390-B.fits in CCDSoft.
Adjust their histograms.
Invoke "Color Combine" window.

Congratulations! Your RRGB Mars image is ready! Note the difference in resolution between the original RGB image from your OSC Webcam and your RRGB composite. It's a huge step up, isn't it?

Observing the Sun through the kitchen window

2010-01-17T19:32:00.009+01:00

The Sun with spots as observed on Sat, 16th Jan. 2010 at 265mm focal length:

Digital zoomed (at effectively 530mm focal length):

The photo above has been shot through the closed kitchen window (!) with a tiny Tak FS-60C (@ f/30) telescope and a special Baader Astrosolar filter. The sky was partially cloudy preventing to reach the maximum resolution of my telescope. Even so some sunspots are clearly visible. Sunspots are "cold" areas with strong magnetism on the Sun surface. Caution: Do not attempt to observe the Sun without using special solar filters. For further information, please contact your telescope dealer.

Star fields near NGC6210 in Hercules

2010-01-15T00:19:00.004+01:00

Integration time in the luminance channel: 180+420 seconds

Camera: ST-7XME, Telescope FS-102 (f/5.6), Focal length 560mm.