On Monday the 7th of August, @Flat_Tim will be once again taking me out to visit one of my more local astronomical societies St. Neots Astronomy Association.

I will be be will be presenting my favourite talk, an audience-participation evening to
“Celebrate Tim Peake’s Principia Mission”.

I am looking forward to being made very welcome once again as they always have done on my previous visits to them. I know that they will probably be surprised to see Flat Tim, as I don’t think they are expecting him (Unless they read this blog, of course!). If my previous visits out with him are anything to go by, I bet they’ll all be wanting to take selfies with him at the end of the evening.

So I’ll be looking forward to having a lot of fun with them during the audience participation bits and I’m sure that they will really enjoy the evening.

All are very welcome, the talk is suitable for all ages, so if you are in the area, come along and say “Hello”.

Their meeting starts at 7:30pm.

Venue:
The Visitors Centre.
Little Paxton Pits Nature Reserve.
Little Paxton. 
St. Neots.
PE19 6ET.

Comet C/2017 O1 – ASAS-SN appears to have brightened rapidly from under +15th magnitude to around +8th magnitude. This newly discovered comet is currently in Cetus, so at the moment is too low for us to see it from the northern hemisphere, but it is moving northwards. Comet C/2017 O1 was discovered by the automated supernova sky survey ASAS-SN. Its name seems to have caused quite a bit of controversy (Why?).

As the comet moves north over the next few months, the comet was expected to be reasonably bright, and should give us a good show later in the year, potentially reaching magnitude +8 at the beginning of October. If this current outburst is anything to go by, could it be a lot brighter? Let’s keep our fingers crossed.
But, don’t forget; It’s a comet! Their performance is so unpredictable.

How to find the comet over the coming months.
The first map below shows the path of the comet from where it is currently in Cetus, moving through Taurus (when it passes between the Hyades and Pleiades star clusters around mid September), then onto Perseus and Camelopardalis. It reaches perihelion at 0.722 Astronomical Units from the Sun on the 14th of October.
It will be its closest to Earth four days later at 1.5 Astronomical Units on the 18th of October.

At the end of the year the comet starts looping round in a retrograde motion close to Polaris.

The other two maps below show a closer view. Click on the maps for a bigger version.

On Tuesday the 1st of August I will making my second visit to Lincoln Astronomical Society to present to them: Rosetta & Philae: From Concept To Reality

My second favourite presentation has been updated to include the conclusion of this spectacular mission to Comet 67P – Churyumov-Gerasimenko, right down to its final image and some of the latest findings.

There is also a chance, courtesy of Dr Colin Snodgrass from the Open University, for the audience to sniff Comet 67P where I will collecting opinions on what the audience think it smells like.

So, if you’re in the area, come along, say “Hello” and enjoy my presentation.

Meeting starts at 7:30pm at their observatory and lecture facility:

23 Westcliffe Street
Lincoln
LN1 3UA

If that is the question, what is the answer?

Here’s my experience so far from using the Quark solar filter.

I have long looked for something to keep me more active during the summer, when night skies are rare.
So I thought solar viewing / imaging would be a good option for continuing some sort of observing going  throughout the summer.

My solar journey started well over two years ago when I decided to get a dedicated 60mm Lunt Solar telescope with a pressure tuner.

From the very moment I started to use it, both visually and imaging, I was totally blown away with the view and results.
So much so, that I really got the bug for our ever-changing nearest star, much more than I ever expected.

One of my first images with the Lunt solar scope. 16th May 2017.

So just over a year and a half later, despite the Lunt being a star performer, I started to yearn for a little bit more from my solar images (as you do!).

So at this stage I started to look at potential options.
When my new research started, I was amazed at how much price of solar equipment had gone up enormously since the time I bought my Lunt.
Whichever way you looked at doing it, whatever the upgrade, this looked like it was going to be very expensive.

Like many people, there are far too many other things to spend your money on, like bills, car maintenance and other wish lists.
Something like this is well down in my list of other priorities, so I had to investigate all options and costs and see what each option would give me.
Whatever I decided to do, it would need to be within reasonable cost restraints and those costs would need to make the upgrade worth doing and give me the boost needed.

I really enjoyed the view using Hydrogen Alpha (I’m not a fan of Calcium scopes), so started to look seriously at what Ha options were available within a reasonable budget.

So here were my choices:

Lunt. I could get a bigger one, but the price is now looking at over £2,000, most likely well over £3,000 and upwards for a reasonable upgrade.
I would have to trade my existing Lunt in to help fund this.
The 60mm has a fairly wide field of view, just under the solar disk, (if two images are taken).

Full disk image taken using four images. 16th May 2017.
Two for the disk, two for the fainter prominences.

This enables me to capture full disk solar images, not an ability I would really want to lose.
So I’d like to keep the Lunt if possible.

So with this in consideration, what options were open to me?

Coronado. I have not had much experience with these, although they have had some great reports. They did have a problem with “rusty” filters at one point. This manufacturing fault has now been resolved. So if you are buying a new instrument, it should not be affected. Just watch out what if you are buying second hand.
Again, looking at all the costs, any upgrade was eye-watering!

Solarscope. These filters look extremely good and can be used on ordinary refractors. But they’re not cheap.

Daystar. These do a reasonably “cheap” (by that, I mean when compared to a dedicated solar scope) Quark device.
This (According to their literature and Web site) can be used on any suitable refractor.
I have seen many images taken using this device on the Web and social media. It really did look like a really nice (and a fairly cheap) option.

There was some talk of problems, but whatever they may have been look like they may have now been resolved.

The expense of the Lunt, Solarscope or Coronado upgrades just could not be justified, so despite the misgivings, and catching a stunning glimpse through one last Kelling, I was now leaning towards the Quark.

The Quark seemed to offer everything I might need for my budget, so just before Christmas 2016, I finally bit the bullet and ordered the Chromo version from Astronomy 365.

Apparently, the etalon that they make to filter the wavelength of light coming through the system is very difficult to get exact. So they have two versions, the Chromo and a Prominence version depending on the exact wavelength of that particular etalon.
I wanted both. Further reading showed that the Chromo version also showed prominences, so that was what I decided to go for.

After ordering, the Quark was efficiently delivered and I waited for a sunny day (In the middle of winter! – Ha!) to test it out.

Once I got a clear sky, I put the device on my ED80 and took in the view.

I must admit that the view left me very disappointed as it did leave a lot to be desired.
The image very faint, especially when compared to the 60mm Lunt. It’s got more aperture, so why isn’t it brighter?
Despite being the Chromosphere model, there was also very little detail seen visually in the faint image.
But I do imaging most of the time anyway, so how does that pan out?

I put in my DMK41 camera and took some images.
The exposure could bring out much more detail and I was fairly happy that I could reveal lots imaging the Sun this way.
Fantastic detail could be seen in prominences and the chromosphere, and sunspots (when they appeared) showed fantastic detail.

The only bugbear was the amount of time it took to indicate it was ready. Unlike the Lunt, the Quark is electrically powered. When the setting is changed, it takes up to 10 minutes, and sometimes more, to indicate ready when the electronic tuning was settled.

It took quite a while before I felt I had mastered the tuning and tamed the Quark sufficiently to get to a point where I was producing some very satisfying images.

The ED80 so far had achieved great results, but research told me that the Quark works much better with a longer focal length telescope than the ED80.

So I opted to purchase a 120 Evostar specifically for use with the Quark.
This is a fairly cheap telescope, which suffers from a bit of chromatic aberration.
But as the Quark is only working at a restricted wavelength at the red end of the spectrum, this doesn’t really affect the image produced by the Quark.

The Evostar duly arrived.
When using a bigger aperture, it is best to use an energy reduction filter.
Up to this aperture an Astronomic UV/IR filter is sufficient, so safety being the ruler, that was soon acquired on its way.
Note: If you use a bigger aperture than 120mm, you will need to use a much more efficient Energy Reduction Filter (ERF).
The cost of these can be just as eye-watering as the dedicated solar scope itself. Be warned!
So the advertising stating that the Quark can be used on any refractor needs to be looked at carefully as not reducing the energy through the optical path can be dangerous.

The Evostar really bought the Quark images to life.
Things went very well for a few months on the occasions I was able to go out and produce images, the tuning still seemed to take a long time, but one one weekend things started to go very wrong extremely quickly.

My last good image before it all went horribly wrong.

Towards the end of this imaging session I started to notice some bright circles starting to appear on the live image.
These started to get so bright, that I could not get any definition in the image as the brightness of these circles completely flooded the camera obscuring any features on the chromosphere.

I removed the camera, quickly stuck in a eyepiece and took a peek. What I saw really startled me!
I could see what looked like 5 dark “bubbles* in the field of view.
Even more quickly, I removed my eye and decided not to use it again, as I didn’t know how safe it would be to use in this condition.
These “bubbles” were obviously scattering the light passing through the filter ruining the resulting image.

I also noticed that the indicator light was flashing somewhat and the Quark was extremely hot.

Not knowing if the filter was safe to use, I packed it away and quickly contacted the suppliers to let them know that there was a problem.

Astronomy 365 were very good in testing the old filter and sending me a replacement.

Tentatively, after receiving the replacement, on the next convenient sunny day, I put the Quark through its paces.
This one wasn’t a patch on the first device when it was performing at its best.
Visually, it was much darker than the first one. When imaging, none of the magnetic field lines around active regions could be seen.
The view was almost as if I was using a white light filter.

This was a very poor imitation of the previous filter and definitely not worth the money I had paid for it.

Being a patient man, I persevered with it, trying it out on a number of occasions, just to eliminate me as the weakest link and testing to try the different tuning positions were different for this particular filter.
Whatever I did, I couldn’t get anything approaching what I had achieved using the previous filter before it went wrong.
Later I found I had problems getting it to re-tune. After 2 hours, the light was still orange.
It should go green to indicate it had reached working temperature after about 10 minutes.

At this point I was ready to give up on the device and once again contacted 365 Astronomy to inform them of my plight.

They accepted the device back tested it and within a couple of weeks they sent me this replacement.

First light was a revelation. The image on the 120 Evostar was very bright.
Detail was easily visible on the chromosphere and prominences clearly seen.

Putting my trusty DMK41 on the Quark managed to reveal a faint prominence, despite thin cloud and difficult conditions trying to prevent me from capturing anything.

First light on the third Quark. 120 Evostar.  21st July 2017.

This looks like it was a very good Quark.

So, for the moment, I am really happy that I can view details on the Suns chromosphere and prominences and produce great images with this filter using both the ED80 and the Evostar.

Field of view when used with ED80 – 22nd July 2017

Field of view when used with 120 Evostar – 22nd July 2017

If the Quark continues to operate in the same manner as it does today, then I am finally very happy with the purchase.

All I can say at this stage is watch this space. I’ll let you know if it goes wrong again.

In Summary:

Check all sources for what is available at the time at your budget.

Avoid trying to buy a solar scope just before or just after a major event like a solar eclipse (Like now).
Around these times demand will be high and stock will be hard to find and probably more expensive.

Beware of second hand Coronado scopes in case they suffer from the dreaded “rusting”.

Due to the difficulties of construction, all solar scopes and filter manufacturers, be they Lunt, Coronado, Solarscope or Daystar have challenges making etalons that perform consistently. They are extremely difficult to make, hence the expense of the equipment. As a result, despite quality control, depending on the wavelength pass of the etalon, you will get a scope that is Fabulous, Good or Passable, depending on the quality of the etalon that is contained within. So be wary. Compare scopes if you can.

Most dedicated solar scopes have a pressure tuner.
This is an instant adjustment with no hanging about.
The Quark uses an electronic tuning system which heats the etalon to adjust the wavelength.
It can take up to 10 minutes to re-tune each time you change the setting.
This can be quite annoying, probably even more so if you have far less patience than me.

If buying a Quark consider two things:
1. The aperture telescope you will be using it with.
Up to 120mm aperture an Astronomic UV/IR filter can be used.
If you use the filter with a bigger aperture than this, you will need to purchase a much more expensive ERF (Energy reduction Filter) to use with it. This could push costs up enormously.

2. Why buy the prominence only version if the Chromo Version shows both Chromosphere detail as well as Prominences? Again this will depend on the wavelength pass of the etalon in the filter.

Test out what is supplied as soon as you can.
If the filter / telescope doesn’t perform as expected, contact the supplier as soon as possible to alert them to this.
They should at least arrange a replacement, or if all else fails, offer a refund.
Most reputable suppliers, like Astronomy 365 will work with you to ensure you, as a customer, are really happy with your purchase.
They should work with the manufacturer to ensure the product is fit for purpose.
If the product isn’t fit for purpose, why should they continue to supply it to their customers?
A happy customer will return.

If you have any experience of these types of scopes or Quarks, please let me know.
It will be interesting to compare my experience with yours.

If you have, please contact me on dave@star-gazing.co.uk.

Dave

Thank you very much to everyone who has booked my Photoshop workshop on the 5th of August, especially my regular attendees. Due to demand, I now have only a few places left on this particular workshop, so book your place now to avoid disappointment.

All workshops are limited to 15 delegates so that I have as much time as needed to help everyone who attends.

Click here for comments people have made about my workshops, presentations and books.

All Workshops cost £30:00 for a whole day.

PHOTOSHOP ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY IMAGE PROCESSING
SATURDAY AUGUST 5TH 2017
CHELVESTON VILLAGE HALL

Learn how to use the tools in Photoshop to get the very best out of your astronomy images after stacking your subs.

These include, curves, levels, layers, Layer masking and saturation to deal with problems with light pollution and bring your astrophotography to life. The workshop will also introduce you to some of the Photoshop plug-ins I consider essential to achieve the very best result and how to write Actions to deal with repetitive tasks and produce consistent results.

Bring in your own stacked images to work on. If you cannot bring in images, I will be providing some of my own for you to practice the techniques shown and for you to take away after the day to continue practising your skills.

To make the most of the day, it is essential that you bring along a laptop with a running copy of Photoshop for the hands-on elements of this workshop.

Cost is £30 for a full day of tuition and hands-on processing.

Space limited to 15 delegates so I can give as much attention as possible to each person.

BOOK THIS WORKSHOP

Want to know what previous attendees have said about my previous workshops? Look here:
www.star-gazing.co.uk/Testimonials.html

On Tuesday the 18th of July, after a bit of a rest, I will be travelling to Stratford upon Avon Astronomical Society.

I will be presenting COMETS: Enigmatic and Beautiful Visitors.
This is a new group I have never spoken to before.

I will be showing at what comets have done to intrigue, terrify and inspire people throughout history.

I will also be looking at what we learnt from all the hype surrounding the apparition of Comet ISON and it’s demise as it passed perihelion as we awaited our “Comet of the Century!”.

I will also be looking forward to the prospects for Comet C/2017 K2 (PANSTARRS) and its apparition scheduled to pass perihelion in October 2023. Having been discovered so far put in the solar system on its way in, will this really be the spectacular comet we have been waiting for?

Stratford upon Avon AS meet in the Village Hall at Alderminster. (Sat Nav CV37 8PE).

The meeting starts at 7:30pm. So if you’re in the area, pop along and say “Hello”.

Apologies for my tardiness in posting my sky diary this month.
A family visit, having to get a replacement computer sorted and a week long bout of summer man-flu (Much worse then winter man-flu) are to blame, not necessarily in that order.

So here it finally is.
Make the most of what little dark skies we get, but the nights are slowly drawing in. 🙂

Click on the image below to download the printable PDF document.

I attended the BAA Comet Section Meeting in Northampton on Saturday. It was a fabulous day out (Despite the heat), speaking to like-minded people about these fabulous objects.

Amongst the many fabulous speakers, Simon White from Cumbria came up with a fantastic idea about taking comet images using remote telescopes from two different locations and producing a 3D comet image from them. It didn’t take me long to realise that this could also be done from a single location and you could take two pictures over time and if the movement is fast enough (And the features in the tail don’t change markedly) you could do the same thing in a single night.

So looking through My Images I found some images of Comet C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy taken on 6^th February 2015.

I re-stacked 8 subs and then the next 8 subs to produce two different images. Each image is stacked on the comet position, so in the two images, the position of the comet is slightly different.

So when the two images are put side-by-side, and you cross your eyes, you can definitely see the 3D effect (I hope it works now).
That was an absolutely fantastic idea Simon. I can see that I have now lost even more of the little spare time I have.
But that’s what I love about these sort of events. We all swap ideas and learn from others.

Since submitting this, I have found that some people have problems seeing the 3D effect properly.

They tend to focus beyond the screen, rather than in front of it. I find that much harder to do.

So for their benefit, here’s the other version, with the images swapped over.

It was a marvellous weekend, blazing sunshine, with soaring temperatures.

Starting with the BAA Comet Section Meeting in Northampton on the Saturday.
Great to hear lots of talks about comets and chat to lots of like-minded people.

When I got home it looked like it was going to be clear that night, so I set everything up.
As it got dark Jupiter started to show, so the webcam was pointed in its direction.
(Throughout the night I tried to do some live Facebook video through the telescope to share the view).

Jupiter and 3 Galilean Moons.

Jupiter

My next target was Comet 2015 V2 (Johnson) Heading southwards through Virgo.
Despite me not yet getting my mount polar aligned since the Solar workshop a couple of weeks ago, i was determined to catch some of the comet to see if I could detect the ion tail.

Comet C/2015 V2 (Johnson) and some distant galaxies.

I didn’t manage to capture the ion tail, as the light pollution and dusty sky caused quite a bright background.

Next target was Saturn. Very low in the south, but as soon as it cleared the neighbouring house, I was on it.
I soon realised that I could only use about a quarter of the scopes aperture, as it was mostly obscured by the fence and plants. (I attempted to trim them there and then in the dark, but finished the job properly next day, to give me more of a chance next time).

Saturn.

Once finished with Saturn, I did some processing and visual observing while waiting for the Moon to rise.
By half past 2 it finally cleared the neighbours house, and the twilight was also starting to break, so I had very little time to get what I wanted. A DSLR Image first and then it was a race to capture some detailed surface feature shots before the sky got too bright. Moon images below.
All in all it was a very productive night.

One feature in particular I was after: The Lunar Swirl Reiner Gamma. I had stumbled upon this feature while observing about 2 years ago, and had been wanting to get a reasonable image of it. Google it, it seem to be very interesting how they think these features are caused.

Reimer Gamma Lunar Swirl.

Crater Kepler and the bright splash rays surrounding it.

Two pane montage of the two images above.

Another feature I have wanted to get a better image of is Rook Mountains and Mare Orientale.
I could see that it was librated quite nicely into view just below the dark feature Grimaldi.

Bullialdus and the Flooded craters Lubiniezky and Kies. The lunar dome Kies Pi can just be seen.

Crater Lambert situated on a wrinkle ridge within Mare Imbrium.

Sunset at Copernicus. The lunar dome complex just above crater Hortensius is visible.
 
The southern Lunar Highlands. Two pane montage.

Schroters Valley and the bright crater Aristarchus.

Following on from my previous successful workshops, my next one is now available for booking on my Web site:

www.star-gazing.co.uk/Workshops.html

PHOTOSHOP ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY IMAGE PROCESSING

A few images taken during last weeks solar imaging workshop, where we went through the techniques, both white-light and narrow band Hydrogen Alpha to observe and image the Sun safely.

Thank you all very much for attending.

I have had some great feedback since the day, so it sounds like a great day was had by all.
Thank you all so very much.

Thanks to Dave Booth for allowing me to use his pictures.

My next workshop will be on the 5th of August. – Photoshop Astronomy Image Processing.
Click here for a list of my next workshops.

My second of my two trips to Norfolk over the last week or so to present my ever popular presentation, Rosetta & Philae: From Concept To Reality
On Monday the 12th of June I will be at Kings Lynne & District Astronomical Society.
This will be my first visit to the group and am looking forward to meeting the group and some online friends.

The talk has been updated to include the conclusion of this spectacular mission to Comet 67P – Churyumov-Gerasimenko, right down to its final image.

There is also a chance, courtesy of Dr Colin Snodgrass from the Open University, for the audience to get a whiff to see what they think Comet 67P smells like and try and describe it.

So, if you’re in the area, come along, say “Hello” and enjoy my presentation.

Meeting starts at 7:30pm.

Venue:
Tottenhill & Wormegay Village Hall
57 Whin Common Road
Tottenhill
Norfolk
PE33 0RS

So, dark skies very rare at this time of year and with the Moon at gibbous, then let’s do some Moon and pick up some Lunar Wonders.

The image above full disk was a 6 panel mosaic. All images taken with a DMK41 Camera on a 190 Mak-Newt.
Close up shots taken using a 2x Barlow and a eyepiece tube extension.

Sunrise over Sinus Iridum.

Copernicus.

Moretus.

Clavius

Bullialdus.

Archimedes to Cassini.

I will be taking the first of two trips to Norfolk in the next week or so to present my ever popular presentation, Rosetta & Philae: From Concept To Reality
On Friday the 9th of June I will be at Breckland Astronomical Society.
This will be my first visit to the group and am looking forward to meeting some online friends.

The talk has been updated to include the conclusion of this spectacular mission to Comet 67P – Churyumov-Gerasimenko, right down to its final image.

There is also a chance, courtesy of Dr Colin Snodgrass from the Open University, for the audience to sniff Comet 67P to decide what they think it really “smells” like.

So, if you’re in the area, come along, say “Hello” and enjoy my presentation.

Meeting starts at 7:30pm.

Venue:
Great Ellingham Recreation Centre
Attleborough
Norfolk
NR17 1HZ

My monthly sky diary for June showing the events of the night sky and space activities now available in pdf form to download and print.

It is also available to share on Google calendars.

More sky events will be added to the live Google calendar as more information becomes available.

So make the most of what little dark skies we do get at this time of the year and look out for displays of noctilucent clouds.

Click here to go to my Google calendar.

Click here, or on the image below to download the pdf.

Despite the claggy skies, I got home from my successful Rosetta presentation to try and capture Supernova 2017eaw in The Fireworks Galaxy NGC 6946 last night.

Image shows last nights image on the left, the right hand picture I took in December 2013.
Position of supernova marked on bottom image.

After I got this, I couldn’t resist trying for Comet Johnson C/215 V2 as well.
Boy, has this comet grown while I wasn’t looking.

On Sunday the 21st of May I will be presenting my ever popular presentation, Rosetta & Philae: From Concept To Reality to Rugby & District Astronomical Society.

The talk has been updated to include the conclusion of this spectacular mission to Comet 67P – Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

There is also a chance, courtesy of Dr Colin Snodgrass from the Open University, for the audience to sniff Comet 67P to decide what they think it really “smells” like.

So, if you’re in the area, come along, say “Hello” and enjoy my presentation.

Meeting starts at 7:30pm.

Venue:
Church Lawford Village Hall,
School Street,
Church Lawford,
Warwickshire.
CV23 9EE

On Tuesday the 16th of May, @Flat_Tim will be once again taking me out to visit one of my more local astronomical societies and my very good friends, Northamptonshire Amateur Astronomers.

We will be presenting my audience-participation evening: “Celebrate Tim Peake’s Principia Mission”.

I am looking forward to being made very welcome once again as they always have done on my numerous previous visits to them. I know that they will probably be surprised to see Tim, as I don’t think they are expecting him (Unless they read this blog, of course!). But, I’ll bet you this for nothing, they’ll all be wanting to take selfies with him at the end of the evening.

So I’ll be looking forward to having a lot of fun with them during the audience participation bits and I’m sure that they will really enjoy the evening I have planned.

All are very welcome, so if you are in the area, come along and say “Hello”.

Their meeting starts at 7:45pm.

They meet at:
The Newton Field Centre,
Newton,
Nr. Geddington,
Kettering.
Northants.
NN14 1BW

On Sunday the 14th of May, @Flat_Tim will be taking me out to visit my very good friends at Northampton Reptile Club to hold another astronomy based evening for them.

We will be presenting my audience-participation “Celebrate Tim Peake’s Principia Mission”.

I am looking forward to being made very welcome once again as before on my previous visits. I know that they are all looking forward to meeting Tim and having their pictures taken with him and I’m sure that they will really enjoy the evening I have planned.

All are very welcome, so if you are in the area, come along and say “Hello”.

Their meeting starts at 7:30pm.

They meet at:
Romany pub,
Kingsley Road,
Northampton,
NN2 6JN

On Tuesday the 9th of May I will be presenting my most popular presentation, Rosetta & Philae: From Concept To Reality to Leicester Astronomical Society. 

Now updated to include the end of this spectacular mission.

There is also a chance, courtesy of Dr Colin Snodgrass from the Open University, for the audience to sniff Comet 67P to decide what they think it really “smells” like.

So, if you’re in the area, come along, say “Hello” and enjoy my presentation.

Meeting starts at 7:30pm at:
John Eggleston Suite,
The National Space Centre,
Exploration Drive,
Leicester

We all love a challenge. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to capture the small solar system object 2014 JO 25 this week, due to circumstances and clouds. However, over the last few weeks I did have fun tracking down two challenging comets. I live on a housing estate, with not only lots of light pollution, but neighbouring houses as well. So my horizon in many directions, leaves a lot to be desired. Two comets in particular were my targets. Terry Lovejoy discovered another cracker. Entitled C/2017 E4, I knew it was fairly low to the horizon. But on the morning of the 5th of April, I got up early at 4am to try and catch it. Out into the dark(ish) garden I went and started to set everything up. Once all on track, with camera focussed, I slewed the teescope round to the position and then realised the comet was still just behind a house quite a way from the observatory and dawn was starting to break. The comet did soon reveal itself as a green smudge on my images, and I had enough time to capture some subs to make a useful final image before the sky background started to overwhelm the comet.

The coma of the comet appears very flattened to me.
Below is the resulting image and a monochrome inverted version attempting to show some detail in the tail.

As the sky brightened, I couldn’t help capturing a couple of images of Saturn which was up in the south.

A couple of mornings later (7th April) I got up early once more hoping to capture Comet C/2015 ER61 PANSTARRS. I got up at just before 4am thinking I would have at least an hour to capture a decent image… Unfortunately, I didn’t look up the circumstances properly beforehand (most unlike me). If you think Lovejoy was challenging, this raised the bar even further. When I got the camera set up and on the comets position, it was still only 3 degrees above the eastern horizon. So it was actually behind our fence (not to mention the neighbouring buildings). So it was a frustrating wait in the brightening dawn for it start to register on my images.

Here’s the sequence of images I took from rising above the fence until the brightness of the sky forced me to finally give in.

Here’s the resulting image.
It might not be much, but it’s mine, taken under very challenging circumstances:

After a number of years developing my art, and let’s face it, astrophotography is a real art-form, my lunar imaging techniques have been gradually gathering momentum. I am now starting to see the fruits of all my efforts and reaping the rewards of that gentle perseverance and patience applied over all those years of learning and making from my own mistakes. I seem to have now developed the best strategy for capturing AVI’s and post-processing workflow, using AutoStakkert!, Registax and Photoshop.

So this last couple of weeks or so, gave me lots of opportunities to get some data in the can and process them to get as much detail out as possible.
And I certainly haven’t been disappointed with the latest results.

All images taken using my 190 Mak-Newt, a DMK41 camera and a 2x Barlow lens.

The area around Crater Posidonius. (Two panel mosaic).

Area around Messier Crater.

The Apollo 11 lunar landing site, showing wrinkle ridges, lunar domes, the ghost crater Lamont and the much smaller craters Collins, Aldrin and Armstrong are easily visible.

The Apollo 11 lunar landing site, again. Taken a day later with a higher sun elevation, the lower features are harder to spot, but more detail visible in the craters Sabine & Ritter.

Rima Hyginus.

The area between Mare Tranquillitatis and Rima Hyginus. (Two pane mosaic).

The area around Theophilus & Cyrillus.

The southern Lunar highlands. (Two pane mosaic).

Mare Imbrium. (Six pane mosaic).

Area around Copernicus, showing the keyhole shaped crater Fauth, and the string of secondary craters caused by the impact. (Four panel mosaic).

Rupes Altai. (Three panel mosaic).

Clavius, showing lots of craterlets littering its floor.

On the evening of Wednesday the 19th of April I will be visiting Towcester Camera Club to give my presentation on Astrophotography.

Towcester Camera Club meet at:
St Michael’s Church Rooms,
Stocks Hill,
Silverstone,
Northants,
NN12 8UW

The meeting starts at 8:00pm. So if you’re in the area, come along and say “Hello”.

I know I enjoy going out to groups and doing presentations, especially to non-astronomers, but following my presentation in Bedford last week, I have just received the following comments from them and it has really made my week:

“It was absolutely fantastic as you guided us through “A Whistle-stop Tour of the Universe” (Hitch-hiking on a Ray of Light) – the images were superb – so exotic. It really was out of this world. You explained everything to us so we were able to understand the various unique and incredible shots. We all enjoyed your charismatic friendly personality and do hope we will have the pleasure of another of your talks sometime in the future”

That’s what it’s all about, bringing the universe into everyone’s lives and showing them what an absolutely spectacular place it is.

Is it my age?
All-night observing or imaging sessions appear to be a much rarer event these days.
The last one I can remember doing at home was when I was hunting down Comet 67P in 2015.

My daughter was flying home from South Africa on the 31st of April, so I knew I’d have a restless night before picking her up from Heathrow early next morning. By staying awake, I could indulge in the crystal clear skies and keep an eye on the progress of her flight.

During the day of Friday the 31st of March no solar imaging was possible due to clouds, but it cleared up very nicely as the Sun got lower.

Before the sky got dark, I was out on the hunt. The extremely shy planet Mercury, due to reach eastern elongation the next day, was my first target.

The half phase of the extremely small planet is just about visible.

Of course, the Moon was coming back, so that was my next target.

I thought it would be quite a wheeze to do some live webcasting on Facebook.
See the results here: https://www.facebook.com/Eagleseye45

I started with the DSLR, before switching to the Webcam.

DSLR image.

I took a series of overlapping images to produce a full image of the Moon.

Mare Crisium – Single image.

Webcam mosaic composed of 13 overlapping images.

I have been trying to improve the quality of my lunar images with the monochrome DMK41 camera.
It looks like my efforts are really starting to pay off (More of which later in the week).

By the time the Moon got lower in the sky, Jupiter, now approaching opposition, was climbing higher.

A bit later, the planet had rotated enough to bring the red spot into view, but some strange horizontal bands were visible in the final image Grrr!!

Colour webcam images using Phillips webcam.
I also did some more live Facebook video as well.

By now the Moon had completely gone, my daughter was now somewhere over north Africa and I was on a roll.

A old favourite of mine beckoned, so the DSLR was rolled out.

M13 – The great Hercules Globular Cluster.

I tried for M81 & M82, but the auto-guiding played up something chronic, s a lot of time was wasted taking subs that were not acceptable. 🙁
This is something I have noticed before, especially if trying to guide on something almost at the zenith.

A new imaging subject for me, NGC2169 The “37” Cluster in Orion.

To finish the night before dashing off to the airport, there were a couple of comets beckoning:

Comet C/2015 V2 (Johnson).

Comet 41P/Tuttle–Giacobini–Kresák

All in all it was a great all-nighter. Boy did I suffer with being flipping tired the next day.
Now that’s probably why I do very a rare all-nighters. Almost like suffering from jet-lag.

But it was fantastic seeing my daughter face-to-face again after she left to live for four years in South Africa last September.
Skypeing just isn’t the same. 🙁

On Wednesday the 5th of April I will be taking Bedford Wine and Social Club on a wild ride touring out to the very edge of our observable universe.

I will be giving my Whistle-Stop Tour of the Universe (Hitch-Hiking on a Ray of Light) presentation to them.

So let’s hope that they all strap themselves in and get ready for a journey that really is out of this world.
(Of course, it’s really just a fantastic excuse to show some beautiful images of our wonderful universe).

Hic!!! Pass the glass.

My monthly sky diary for April showing the events of the night sky and space activities now available in pdf form to download and print. It is also available to share on Google calendars. More sky events will be added to the live calendar as more information becomes available.

Click here to go to my Google calendar.

Click here or on the image below to download the printable pdf.

Let’s hope we get some clear skies to enjoy it all and let’s hope the lighter evenings don’t put us off observing.

Dave