Coming shortly

Pete R posted that asteroid Eunomia is about to cross the California Nebula.. Sounds like a good photo op. Here is another interesting event for the 2nd of December (and a day or two before and after).

Its comet P/2006 T1 Levy passing in front of NGC 7331 - Near Stephan's Quintet in Pegasus. The predicted mag for the comet is 9.5 (We'll see) Let's hope for a couple of clear nights

M81 M82 & neigbours

This image is from the IKI 70mm f6 scope. 20x6min @800iso. It shows M81 and its neighbour M82 - starburst galaxy. Also seen near the top is ngc3077 and at bottom left ngc2976 (a very odd spiral? galaxy.)

White light solar

With my 8" newt ,Baader 3,5 filter & MKAS DMK21 camera

North America Nebula

Here's the other shot from Thursday night.10 x 5min exposures.

The E nebula

This dark nebula Barnard 142/143 is just north west of Altair.
15x5min  at 1600iso on the 70mm apo with darks, flats + bias. I'm sure my image calibration isn't great but I think it's a lot better than with nothing.
I (obviously) expose the lights. I am imaging with the apt software. The free version is great. PHD is working fine now with a 400mm f6.3 telephoto lens. (It's well strapped down so there's no differential flexure.
I go indoors and connect my laptop via Tight VNC using a via mains network system and can view the frames as they appear. Same for the PHD graph.
At the end of the session I put on the lens cap. Start the series of dark frames and then leave the dome & go to bed. I'm using a power pack with an Astronomiser dummy battery pack so there's enough juice to do the work.
Next day I do the flats (using the sky at the moment, but I'm making a (some) lightbox. People say that if you do flats then you must do bias frames so I do. I just do some frames with lenscap on and zero exposure (actually 1/4000s).
I then plug it all into Deep Sky Stacker and see what happens.

Cocoon Nebula IC 5146

18x 5min. darks flats bias frames.
70mm f6 ed

A quick video tour round the sun

Gamma Cygni region

I felt the need for a little nebulosity last night so I shot this area -around Gamma Cygni. The butterfly nebula IC1318. 28x3min. most at 800iso some at 1600iso. Unguided (long story) 70mm f6 ed from IKI.

Easter Monday mosaic

Slice of sunshine

Mosaic of 5 pics across solar equatorial region , plus proms. I may rework this to avoid the sloppy joins.

Sunny Good Friday

Busy afternoon . This is the Lunt scope with stacked 2.8x and 2x barlows. Seeing not great but seeing some detail. Region 1193 is an active flare forming region and may have more to come. Click on the prom for an animation.

Back to the night sky

Before the moon returns with a vengance I got a couple of shots on Friday night including this of NGC3227 and 3226 just to the east of gamma Leonis (see diffraction spike)
8x5min 800iso

Sunny Monday afternoon

This solar malarkey's quite hard work, but I learn a little more each time. Onward and upward.

another prom sequence from today. 21st March

animated prom

another sunny day today. Here's a (2 frame) animation of one of the active prominences. Click on the pic to see animation

and another

More solar activity

Lunt solar scope. First light image