Thread: astronomy

Thought I'd throw up a few pictures of what I've been dabbling in since I started this thread way back. I had a little Maksutov scope for a while, which I found in a clients backyard rubbish pile. Refurbished it, since given it away. Then I bought vintage Vixen telescopes, a 60mm refractor and a 100 reflector on a Great Polaris equatrorial mount - I use this scope for long exposure shots with an SLR camera, using the refractor as a guiding scope - I made an Arduino unit to control the mount via a laptop. Not as good as an EQ6 mount but not bad for as much as I want to do.

Then I answered an ad for someone selling a 14" Orion Dobsonian, but it had been left in the weather for years and the chipboard base was toast and the mirror had lost some coating - I estimated 5% of the reflective surface was lost. They ended up giving it to me just to be rid of it. I tidied it up and built a new Dobsonian base out of scrap board from kitchen fitouts. I also bought a secondhand dolley for it (It is as big as a hot water system) so it is easy to roll out. I was happy to take it because 95% of a 14" mirror is still a lot of mirror! I use this scope often with my iphoneSE to take happy snaps which I posts on various social media apps to give people their daily awe, show people/kids it's easy to do and promote a bit of science/give the trolls something to argue about. With the iphone shots on the big scope, I don't stack images, I only tidy up a bit in Lightroom on the phone. Here's a few images and I can post more if people show interest.

The first is a shot of the Apennine Mountains on the border of Mare Imbrium. I like to shoot this area at a particular time of the lunar cycle because it includes the landing site of Apollo 15. In fact I've highlighted a yellow box that surrounds the area. The little crater in the box is Hadley C crater and it has a diameter of 6km. There is a rille visible (the sinuous line - Hadley Rille) which is about 1.5km wide and Apollo 15 landed at the righthand side of this. This is a single image on my iphoneSE using Nightcap app and my 14" scope.
IMG_6363 4.jpeg. IMG_6363 5.jpeg

The next image is a 30second exposure on my Nikon SLR with my vintage Nikon f/4 200mm AI prime lens mounted on my Vixen 100mm reflector on the Great Polaris mount (just tracking, not guided). This is the waxing crescent Moon conjunction with Venus. The long exposure brings out the shadow-side of the Moon illuminated by Earth Shine.

_DSC0332.jpg


cheers
M

Always had a keen interest in Astronomy and all the sciences for that matter. Had refractors/reflector telescopes in my youth but haven't got anything now. I find it amazing how Astrophotography has developed over the years for the amateur Astronomer.

Originally Posted by EagerBeaver71

Always had a keen interest in Astronomy and all the sciences for that matter. Had refractors/reflector telescopes in my youth but haven't got anything now. I find it amazing how Astrophotography has developed over the years for the amateur Astronomer.

Yes it’s impressive how far amateur astrophotography has come

Here's some more happy snaps of the Moon, taken with my IphoneSE at the eyepiece of various telescopes. I clamp the phone to the eyepiece with an adaptor for these shots. It takes very little time to set up and very little time to shoot the Moon or planets because they are so bright. I use Nightcap app on the phone which automatically takes shots until I stop it, then it's just a matter of choosing the best one with the lowest atmospheric disturbance to process.

This is probably my best 'Mineral Moon'. I think I did stack video frames from my iphone to improve the signal/noise and I think this was on my old Celestron Maksutov scope. By turning up the saturation of the image it brings out different mineral contents in different areas of the Moon. With modern technology it's possible to create this image in a matter of minutes whereas when it was first done it would have taken days and days.

IMG_6798.jpg

This is another 'Mineral Moon' of last months full Moon, but processed from just one image from my phone mounted on the 14" telescope. There is so much light from this scope, I can actually see colour differences in the unedited image, the Moon is not monochromatic!

72392956-D420-4AE8-80C6-4CB1B6C8F7A0.jpg

A First Quarter shot and a daylight shot taken with my IphoneSE on my little Vixen 60mm f/15 refractor. Great optics, just a little tight for light.

IMG_7596.jpg

IMG_4192.jpg

Very nice images !

Just to introduce some woodwork content. This is an astronomers' chair I made for a local amateur a few years ago.

Astronomer's chair.jpg

Originally Posted by AlexS

Just to introduce some woodwork content. This is an astronomers' chair I made for a local amateur a few years ago.

Astronomer's chair.jpg

That's a nice chair Alex, for a person with a refractor or binoculars I guess. I have the opposite need with my scope, getting up high enough, especially for short people. So I added these quick knockdown handles to a little ladder so people have a step up and also something to steady themselves, otherwise they invariably grab the scope and yank it, which makes it hard to show them something! Bonus is, it's a pretty useful addition as a work ladder too
IMG_9555.jpg

Originally Posted by mic-d

That's a nice chair Alex, for a person with a refractor or binoculars I guess. I have the opposite need with my scope, getting up high enough, especially for short people. So I added these quick knockdown handles to a little ladder so people have a step up and also something to steady themselves, otherwise they invariably grab the scope and yank it, which makes it hard to show them something! Bonus is, it's a pretty useful addition as a work ladder too
IMG_9555.jpg

Nice Dobsonian.

Originally Posted by mic-d

Here's some more happy snaps of the Moon, taken with my IphoneSE at the eyepiece of various telescopes. I clamp the phone to the eyepiece with an adaptor for these shots. It takes very little time to set up and very little time to shoot the Moon or planets because they are so bright. I use Nightcap app on the phone which automatically takes shots until I stop it, then it's just a matter of choosing the best one with the lowest atmospheric disturbance to process.

This is probably my best 'Mineral Moon'. I think I did stack video frames from my iphone to improve the signal/noise and I think this was on my old Celestron Maksutov scope. By turning up the saturation of the image it brings out different mineral contents in different areas of the Moon. With modern technology it's possible to create this image in a matter of minutes whereas when it was first done it would have taken days and days.

IMG_6798.jpg

This is another 'Mineral Moon' of last months full Moon, but processed from just one image from my phone mounted on the 14" telescope. There is so much light from this scope, I can actually see colour differences in the unedited image, the Moon is not monochromatic!

72392956-D420-4AE8-80C6-4CB1B6C8F7A0.jpg

A First Quarter shot and a daylight shot taken with my IphoneSE on my little Vixen 60mm f/15 refractor. Great optics, just a little tight for light.

IMG_7596.jpg

IMG_4192.jpg

Some great pics there!

Log Dog