26/11/2009 by yesyes.

Tonight I tried to do some afocal imaging for the first time. The results are not great but hey, they are my first DSO images…

The pictures have been taken with my Canon Ixus 860is strapped in front of an eyepiece with a digital camera holder contraption. The photo album can be found here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/chris.yesyes/20091126AndromedaOrionNebula#

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03/11/2009 by yesyes.

I’ve tried imaging Jupiter before and was hoping to take some better images tonight using a 3x Barlow lens in front of the webcam.

Jupiter definitely turned out bigger and the belts and bands on its surface can be seen much better this time. Although I think the images could still be a little sharper.

Here is the album:
http://picasaweb.google.com/chris.yesyes/20091103Jupiter#

…and a sample picture:

I’ve also had another go at making a Moon mosaic. This time with an almost full Moon.

Here is the result. Unfortunately this time I’ve missed a few bits; bang in the middle and on the right at the terminator. But there is definitely a bit more colour this time.

Album with a few sample individual shots and the final mosaic here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/chris.yesyes/20091103Moon#

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28/10/2009 by yesyes.

28/10/2009:

Today I wanted to image the Moon. I noticed that it doesn’t quite fit into the field of view of the webcam; not by a long shot. So I decided to try a mosaic. I took several separate videos with the webcam, roughly 400 frames per video. 24 of them turned out rather well and I converted them into still images using Registax. Luckily these images covered the whole visible part of the Moon. So I stitched these images together (using Microsoft Image Composite Editor (ICE) which amazingly is free software from Microsoft!!).

I was well pleased with the result:

Here are some of the individual images used for the mosaic:

More images in the album here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/chris.yesyes/20091028MoonMosaic#

Celestron, the manufacturer of my telescope also seem to like this picture. I’ve uploaded the mosaic to www.celestronimages.com and Celestron decided to put the picture on their product page for this telescope model:
http://www.celestron.com/c3/product.php?CatID=11&ProdID=57
(click on the Images tab)

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18/10/2009 by yesyes.

18/10/2009:

Today I made my first attempt at webcam imaging. The target was Jupiter. 3 of Jupiter’s moons are also visible in some images. These are low quality first steps…

I was having a BBQ with the in-laws at the same time so couldn’t really concentrate too much on the imaging. Also, I didn’t choose the telescope position very wisely so I had to image through the smoke of the BBQ!

Still, these are my first astronomical webcam images…

Here is the album:
http://picasaweb.google.com/chris.yesyes/20091018Jupiter#

2 example images:

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29/09/2009 by yesyes.

29/09/2009:

I got lucky. After unpacking and test-assembling the new scope I had a quick look outside. CLEAR SKY! unbelievable!

So I took the scope outside and had a quick look through it. I was amazed. Sooo much better than the previous smaller one.
I didn’t play with the GoTo yet, Just pointed it at the Moon and Jupiter manually and unpowered.

Here’s a few pictures taken quickly through the eyepiece with my digital camera handheld:

The Moon:

And Jupiter with 2 of its moons:

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