Swansea Astronomical Society Blog

Tuesday, April 24, 2018

Studies on a waxing, crescent Moon

27% Waxing Moon
Celestron 9.25 SCT AVX, ZWO ASI120MM, between 3000 and 10000 images captured in Firecapture 2.5x64, 600 stacked and aligned in AutoStakkert!2.3, wavelets in Registax 6, then edited in Adobe Elements 11

Atlas, Hercules 

Burckhardt, Cleomedes 

Cepheus, Franklin 

Endymion, Keldysh, Atlas, Hercules 

Metius, Fabricius, Janssen, Steinheil, Walt 

Taruntius

---

38% Waxing Moon
Celestron 9.25 SCT AVX, ZWO ASI120MM, between 3000 and 10000 images captured in Firecapture 2.5x64, 600 stacked and aligned in AutoStakkert!2.3, wavelets in Registax 6, then edited in Adobe Elements 11

Delambre, Hypatia, Alfraganus, Taylor

Lindenau, Rabbi Levi, Biccius, Zagut

38% Waxing Moon
Celestron 9.25 SCT AVX, ZWO ASI120MM, between 5000 and 10000 images captured in Firecapture 2.5x64, 600 stacked and aligned in AutoStakkert!2.3, wavelets in Registax 6, then edited in Adobe Elements 11

Madler, Theophilus, Cyrillus

Messier A

Posidoius, Chacornac

Theophilus, Cyrillus

Colin Miles

posted by astroimager  # 9:27 AM 0 Comments

Saturday, April 21, 2018

37% waxing crescent Moon with an SVBONY SV105 £35 camera and AstroDMx Capture for Linux

A Bresser Messier AR-102XS ED, f/4.5 refractor, was mounted on a Star Discovery AZ GOTO mount. An SVBONY SV105 camera was attached to an extension tube with a Baader green continuum filter fitted, and it was placed at the prime focus of the refractor.
AstroDMx Capture for Linux was used to capture a 1000 frame SER file of the Moon using real-time Flat-field correction.
Click on an image to get closer views.

Screenshot of AstroDMx Capture for Linux capturing the SER file

The best 90% of the frames in the SER file were stacked inthe beta version of Astrostakkert! 3.1.0 running in Wine 3.5. The resulting image was wavelet processed in Registax 5.1 also running in Wine and the final image was post processed in the Gimp 2.9.

Steve Wainwright & Nicola Mackin

posted by astroimager  # 10:25 PM 0 Comments

The Sunflower galaxy and the Sun

The Sunflower galaxy was imaged using a Ritchey Chretien 6 inch and SX694 ccd camera. An SX Superstar camera was used to guide with.
12 x 5 min luminance, 4 x 5 min RGB, giving 20 minutes per channel. All 2x2 binned giving image scale of around 1.4 arcsec per pixel.
Stacked and calibrated in Maxim DL and further processed in Pixinsight.
Click on an image to get a closer view.

A Lunt 50 solarscope and Altair Hypercam were used to image the Sun in H-alpha. The best 25% of 1000 images for each were used.

Anne Startup

posted by astroimager  # 10:14 PM 0 Comments

Friday, April 20, 2018

27% waxing, crescent Moon with a SVBONY SV105 camera and AstroDMx Capture for Linux

A Celestron Omni SLT 150mm, f/5 Newtonian was mounted on a Celestron AVX, EQ, GOTO mount. An SVBONY £35 SV105 camera was placed at the Newtonian focus and a ND13 filter was used. AstroDMx Capture for Linux was used to capture 1500 frame SER files of three overlapping panes of the Moon, with real-time flatfield correction. The best 80% of frames of each SER file were stacked in the beta version of Autostakkert! 3.1.0. running in Wine. The images were stitched together in Microsoft ICE running in Wine and the final image was wavelet processed in Registax 5.1 also running in Wine. The final image was post processed in the Gimp 2.9.
Click on an image to get a closer view.

Screenshot of AstroDMx Capture for Linux displaying one of the panes

Screenshot of AstroDMx Capture for Linux capturing a SER file of part of the Moon

Final mosaic

Steve Wainwright & Nicola Mackin

posted by astroimager  # 11:57 PM 0 Comments

More tests with an SVBONY SV105 £35 camera and AstroDMx Capture for Linux.

An SVBONY SV105 camera was fitted with an extension tube with a ND13 filter. (the extension tube was needed because the camera nose-piece is not threaded to take a filter.) The camera assembly was attached to a Skymax 127 Maxutov mounted on a Celestron AVX, EQ, GOTO mount. AstroDMx Capture for Linux was used to capture a 2000 frame SER file of the Mare Crisium region of the 17.2%, waxing, crescent Moon. The best 75% of the frames in the SER file were stacked in the beta version of Autostakkert! 3.1.0 running in Wine 3.5. The resulting image was wavelet processed in Registax 5.1 also running in Wine and post processed in the Gimp 2.9.
Click on an image to get a closer view

Screenshot of AstroDMx Capture for Linux capturing the SER file.

Mare Crisium region

Steve Wainwright & Nicola Makin

posted by astroimager  # 4:54 AM 0 Comments

Thursday, April 19, 2018

Deep sky tests with a Bresser Messier AR-102XS ED refractor, a QHY5L-ll-M and AstroDMx Capture for Linux

A Bresser Messier AR-102XS ED, f/4.5 refractor, was mounted on a Celestron AVX, EQ, GOTO mount. A  QHY5L-ll-M camera was mounted at the prime focus and AstroDMx Capture for Linux, running on a Fedora laptop was used to capture Fits files with matching dark-frames.
Click on an image to get a closer view.

The imaging setup

An occultation board on the tripod to the right shades the equipment from a nearby streetlight.

M65 and M66 in Leo, M51 in Ursa Major and M3 in Bootes were the objects imaged. 16 bit images were captured throughout (12 bit images in a 16 bit container).
20 x 30s exposures were captured of M65 and M66. 30 x 45s exposures were captured of M51 and 50 x 5s exposures were captured of M3.
The FITs files were stacked in Deep Sky Stacker 4.1 running in Wine 3.5 and post processed in the Gimp 2.9.

M3

M51

M65 & M66

Screenshot of AstroDMx Capture for Linux imaging M65 & M66

Steve Wainwright and Nicola Mackin

posted by astroimager  # 3:22 PM 0 Comments

The Crescent Moon with a low cost SVBONY SV105 camera

The SVBONY SV105 HD, CMOS camera is available on AliExpress for about £35. It is very well built, in metal housing.

The camera is very sensitive and an ND13 filter was attached to an extender tube attached to the camera.

This was to allow the diagonal to be removed, and the camera directly attached to the focusing tube of a Bresser Messier AR-102XS, f/4.5, 102mm, ED refractor.

AstroDMx Capture for Linux was used to capture an unsaturated, 2000 frame SER file of the 9.4% crescent Moon.

Screenshot of AsroDMx Capture for Linux capturing the SER file

The best 75% of the frames in the SER file were stacked in Emil Kraaikamp's Autostakkert! 3.1.0 currently under beta testing. Running in Wine 3.5 on a Fedora Linux laptop.

Screenshot of Autostakkert! 3.1.0 stacking the SER data

The resulting image was wavelet processed in Registax 5.1 also running in Wine and post processed in the Gimp 2.9.

Steve Wainwright and Nicola Mackin

posted by astroimager  # 12:36 PM 0 Comments

Jupiter, Saturn and Mars

Red Spot and Ganymede - Ganymede and Callisto Shadows.
Celestron 9.25 SCT AVX, 2xTelevue Barlow, ZWO ASI120MC-S camera, 5000 images captured in Firecapture 2.5x64, 750 stacked and aligned in AutoStakkert!3.0, wavelets in Registax 6, then edited in Adobe Elements 11

Saturn
Celestron 9.25 SCT AVX, 2xTelevue Barlow, ZWO ASI120MC-S camera, 2508 images captured in Firecapture 2.5x64, 600 stacked and aligned in AutoStakkert!3.0, wavelets in Registax 6, then edited in Adobe Elements 11

Mars 

Celestron 9.25 SCT AVX, 2xTelevue Barlow, ZWO ASI120MC-S camera, 2508 images captured in Firecapture 2.5x64, 600 stacked and aligned in AutoStakkert!2.6, wavelets in Registax 6, then edited in Adobe Elements 11

Colin Miles

posted by astroimager  # 12:15 PM 0 Comments

Thursday, April 12, 2018

Meteorite Falls In Wales

Thank you very much to Dave Powell of Barry Astronomical Society who gave us a spellbinding talk on "Meteorite Falls in Wales" this evening.

Dave in action

A fireball is about the size of your fist up to the size of a chair and burns up in the atmosphere - it is similar to Venus's brightness at -4 mag. A meterorite, however, is bigger...the size of a room or several football pitches. Its size means that it doesn't all burn up and some of it lands on the ground. In recent history, you may remember the Chelyabinsk meteorite in Russia in 2013 which was recorded on many car dash cams.

In Wales, there have been two main meteorites recorded - the first was in Pontllyni on April 14th 1931 which was seen as a daylight fireball from as far away as Leeds and Rippon. Only 5 ounces was found and the rest may have fallen into the Irish Sea. Dave told us the fascinating and often amusing story of the tussle over ownership of the discovered rock, which was eventually donated to the British Museum in 1975. Parts of it are now all over the world.

The second meteorite fell on 21st September 1949 on a pub/hotel in Beddgelert. The hotel had 12 rooms and the meteorite fortunately fell on the only unoccupied room! It weighed five pounds. 

Obviously there have been many more falls in history, and it's likely that there are many other rocks from outer space lying out there undiscovered!

Dave recommended this book:

You can also take part in the UK meteor observation network at http://ukmeteornetwork.co.uk

Thank you again to Dave for a very interesting talk!

posted by Gaynor Thomas  # 9:32 PM 0 Comments

Monday, April 9, 2018

Jupiter and Io

Celestron 9.25 SCT AVX, 2xTelevue Barlow, ZWO ASI120MC-S camera, 5000 images captured in Firecapture 2.5x64, 1000 stacked and aligned in AutoStakkert!3.0, wavelets in Registax 6, then edited in Adobe Elements 11

Jupiter with Io

Colin Miles

posted by astroimager  # 2:23 PM 0 Comments

Monday, March 26, 2018

New release (0.10.2.0) of AstroDMx Capture for Linux

Nicola has released a new version of AstroDMx Capture for Linux.

http://www.linux-astro-imaging.uk/

Release 0.10.2.0 has full support for:

Astronomy cameras
QHY 5L-II-M (USB2.0, 12 bit ADC)
QHY 5L-II-C  (USB2.0, 12 bit ADC)
DMK 21AU04.AS (8 bit ADC)
DFK 21AU04.AS (8 bit ADC)
DBK 21AU04.AS (8 bit ADC)
ZWO ASI120MC (USB2.0, 12 bit ADC)
ZWO ASI120MC-S (USB3.0, 12 bit ADC)
ZWO ASI120MM-S (USB3.0, 12 bit ADC)
Bresser MicrOcular Full HD Digital Camera (8 bit ADC)
USB cameras
ELP 1.3Mp CMOS board-level HD USB camera (8 bit ADC)
Lucky Zoom 5Mp microscope USB CMOS camera (8 bit ADC)
Vimicro USB2.0 UVC PC camera (e.g. Maplin USB2.0 Microscope) (8 bit ADC)
USB Capture cards
KWORLD DVD MAKER 2 (8 bit ADC)
UVC capture card (Motion-JPEG only) (8 bit ADC)
EasyCAP (Motion-JPEG only) (8 bit ADC)
USB webcams
Sweex WC066 HD webcam (8 bit ADC)
Sweex WC070 ViewPlus (8 bit ADC)
Sweex WC035V2 VGA webcam (8 bit ADC)
Philips SPC900NC including SPC800 and Philips 740 flashed to SPC900NC (8 bit ADC)
Philips 690 Vesta Pro Webcam (8 bit ADC)
Logitech HD C525 (8 bit ADC)
Microsoft LIFECAM 2 (8 bit ADC)
Creative Webcam Live (8 bit ADC) Bayer output only.
All Video 4 Linux cameras.
ZWO filter wheel

posted by astroimager  # 9:30 PM 0 Comments

63% waxing Moon.

Celestron 9.25 SCT AVX, 2xTelevue Barlow, ZWO ASI120MM camera, images captured in Firecapture 2.5x64, stacked and aligned in AutoStakkert!2.3, wavelets in Registax 6, then edited in Adobe Elements 11

Arzachel, Alpetragius 

600 out of 4000 frames 

Arzachel, Thebit, Rupes Recta, Birt 

600 out of 4000 frames 

Maginus

600 out of 5000 frames

Celestron 9.25 SCT AVX, ZWO ASI120MM camera, images captured in Firecapture 2.5x64, stacked and aligned in AutoStakkert!2.3, wavelets in Registax 6, then edited in Adobe Elements 11

3xMeade Shorty Barlow, 600 stacked out of 2000

Clavius 

2xTelevue Barlow, 600 stacked out of 3000 

3xMeade Shorty Barlow, 600 stacked out of 4000 

3xMeade Shorty Barlow, 600 stacked out of 2000 

 Aristillus, Autolycus, Archimedes

Colin Miles

posted by astroimager  # 6:43 PM 1 Comments

More tests with a Sweex WC035V2 VGA CMOS webcam costing less than £8

A Sweex WC035V2  VGA CMOS webcam costing less than £8 on Amazon UK was fitted with an IR/UV cut filter and placed at the Cassegrain focus of a Skymax 127 Maksutov.

A Sweex WC035V2  VGA CMOS webcam

Webcam fitted with a Mogg adapter and an IR/UV cut filter

The scope was mounted on a Celestron AVX, EQ, GOTO mount. AstroDMx Capture for Linux, running on a Fedora laptop was used to capture 2000 frame SER files of various regions of the 63.4% waxing, gibbous Moon. The best 90% of frames in the SER files were stacked in Autostakkert! 3 and the resulting images were wavelet processed in Registax 5.1, both running in Wine. Microsoft ICE, running in Wine, was used to stitch together two overlapping images in the Tycho, Clavius region.
Click on an image to get a closer view.

Screenshot of AstroDMx Capture for Linux, capturing a SER file

Composite of two overlapping panes showing craters Clavius, Gruemberger, Morteus, Maginus and Tycho

Eratosthenes, Mons Wolff and Montes Apenninus

Archimedes, Autolycus and Aristillus

There were some slight compression artifacts, but not enough to spoil the results from this very low cost webcam. The camera also gave very pleasing live views that would be very suitable for outreach work. It is very easy to adapt for astronomical imaging and as a first camera for Lunar and maybe planetary imaging, this webcam is not a bad choice.

It is likely that Nicola will release the next version of AstroDMx Capture for Linux later today.

posted by astroimager  # 10:20 AM 2 Comments

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