Latest Images  (and News)

 (As you might expect, the most recent images are at the top of this page. But the Gallery pages read downwards.) 

If you're just popping in for a brief visit, have a look at my 'Pick of the Bunch'

Laptop Upgrade, 2004 Messier Marathon, Transit of Venus, Dalby 2004 Star Party, Kelling Heath 2007 and other oddments on the Bits 'n Pieces Page.

All photographs Copyright © Peter Vasey, and may not be reproduced without permission. You can email me at the following:

Visits to La Palma. 2007 and 2008

Visit to Les Granges 2008 and 2009

Comet 17P/Holmes There is a separate page devoted to this remarkable comet. Here. 

NEW Home made 'Light Board' for producing flat field images. 

At the end of June, finally our long awaited extended holiday began, and after some interesting stops in America we arrived in French Polynesia for the July 11th Total Solar Eclipse. Although staying on Tahiti and the adjoining Moorea, to view the eclipse we flew to Tatakoto Atoll which was situated very close to the centre line. This was the diamond ring at second contact, with some Bailey's beads evident along with prominences. All these Solar images were taken using my Canon 350D camera and Canon 400 mm f5.6 L lens, and ISO 100. This single frame 1/1000 second. Full size.
We witnessed 4 1/2 minutes of totality, but as always the time flew past. Nevertheless I was able to view the event while taking a range of photos. This is a composite of several frames between 1/1000 and 1 second. Despite the thin haze, I also succeeded in capturing Earthshine, and several stars, the brightest being magnitude 3.5 Delta Geminorum (above the disc). Larger image.
All too soon came third contact with again a nice diamond ring and prominences. We were very fortunate with the weather - clouds before and after, indeed totally obscured 10 minutes later. Phew! Full size.
As well as taking close ups I managed a wide angle shot with my Panasonic TZ5 on a lightweight tripod. The Sun was washed out, but my wife fortunately took a photo with her Canon Ixus 40 at a shorter exposure nicely showing the 'black dot', so this is again a composite. Note Mercury lower right of the Sun. This and the above two pictures featured in the August BBC 'Sky at Night' programme with Sir Patrick Moore, and this photo appeared in the September 2010 issue of Astronomy Now. Larger image.
Tatakoto atoll is approximately 740 miles from Tahiti and is about 9 miles long by 2 miles wide. Very remote, and because the eclipse started at 7.30 am, we had to leave Tahiti around 3.30 am!
A beautiful atoll, here seen in a satellite view (thanks, Google Earth!)
We walked through the coconut palm forest to the inner lagoon to view the eclipse, and afterwards adjourned to the village.
There was a substantial group of people in our and other parties, all with a wide variety of equipment.
Here I am setting up my EQ3-2 mount and Canon camera with the 400 mm lens. Note the Solar filter on the red dot finder as well as the camera lens.
Checking an image during totality.
Lunchtime! This was one of several tables well stocked with delicious snacks. Woven palm fronds formed tablecloths and shelters.
The entertainment. Three young girls from the village and the local band performed for us. The youngsters were a bit shy at first, but soon got into the spirit and a good time was had by all!

Following the Eclipse, it was always my intention to photograph the Southern Milky Way, not only in wide field, but also with some more close up images using the 400 mm lens. I had no opportunity on Tahiti or Moorea, and for most of the following two weeks on New Zealand the Moon was intrusive. Towards the end of that stay I obtained this image from a dark camp site (we were in a camper van) at Fairlie in South Island. Lots of trees unfortunately, and the Moon rose before I could go for close ups. But good views of the Clouds of Magellan, the Southern Cross, the Coalsack and Carina nebulae. Composite of 5 x 5 minute exposures at ISO800, Canon 350D and Tamron 17-50 lens at 17 mm and f5.6 Full Size NOTE The full size versions of these three deep sky images are all over 1 MB in size
After leaving New Zealand we travelled to Tasmania, and I was given a warm welcome by Shevill Mathers who lives on the outskirts of Hobart. He has a large home observatory with superb equipment. Thanks for an enjoyable visit, Shevill. His excellent web site is here.
And just to prove I was there!
Although Shevill lives only a few miles outside Hobart, nevertheless he has very good sky conditions. This is a photo he took from his home. Single frame, Canon 450D 10 seconds static shot with a Sigma 30mm lens at f/2 and ISO 1600. Wish I had skies like that!
From Hobart, we moved North to stay with relations near Launceston. With four nights there I expected to be able to enjoy the night sky - New Moon and a dark site. But it was not to be - cloud and rain alas. The only remaining opportunity was from the next stop with relations on the Gold Coast near Brisbane. But there was light pollution and a brightening Moon. Nevertheless I obtained this pic of the heart of the Milky Way - a couple of constellation figures in for identification. Canon 350D, 5 x 5 minute sub frames at ISO 800, Tamron lens at 17 mm. Full size.
All the 17 mm shots were taken unguided on my EQ3-2 mount - the mount tracking was accurate enough at the short focal length, and I had a good Polar alignment. So to finish off, I zoomed the lens up to 50 mm, just for a try. And indeed the unguided tracking was good enough at that focal length as well. This shows the Southern Cross and Coalsack area. So although I had a guide camera with me, I never used it. Full size. I guess I'll have to return South some time. Maybe in 2012 for the Transit of Venus !

Light nights are with me, and unless I go narrowband, only brighter objects are of interest for imaging. So here's one of Corona Borealis from the early hours of 3rd June. SBIG ST4000XCM with Tamron 17-50 f2.8 lens unguided on the Gemini mount at 50 mm focal length and f5.6. 10 x 5 minute subs, darks and flats used. Of interest is the large asteroid Pallas at mag 9.0, now gradually fading from a maximum of 8.6 in April. Pure chance that it's in the field - I didn't know until I started playing with a Skymap overlay to work out what was stars and what was noise. In fact nearly all stars, just the odd hot pixel that escaped the dark frame but was then removed. Full Size (810 KB!)

With all the experimentation with lenses, my main imaging took a back seat for a while, and May twilight nights were upon me. But still good Astronomical twilight, so with a nicely clear night on 12th, I thought I'd try (with a view to returning in September) and see if I could pick out the extended shell of NGC 6543 - the Cat's Eye nebula in Draco. And I could!! But it's faint, and I used 11 x 10 minute subs binned 2x2 to get as much data as possible in the limited time. To get a decent result unbinned will require many hours of data. The nebula itself 'bloomed' in about a minute, so of course was horrible in the 10 minute subs, but I took several one minute frames as well to get a reasonable shape. No colour, probably no chance now until the Autumn, but we shall see.... ST-10XME with AO-8 on Meade 12"" at f10. The core nebula is very small - only 20 arc-seconds. To image at a reasonable size the seeing would have to be sub arc-second and a 3x Barlow used. OK I've got a Barlow, but the seeing? No chance in the UK!

As the Eclipse/Southern Hemisphere trip in June/July 2010 grew closer, I became increasingly concerned about the weight problems in taking the rig mentioned below. I considered a premium small refractor, but after considerable web browsing, in particular this site, I invested in the superb Canon EF 400 f5.6L prime telephoto lens. I also managed to reduce the size of the guiding system by using a small 300mm fl mirror lens which strangely although supposedly M42 lens thread screwed easily into the 'T' threaded XY guider without an adapter. Total weight saving a little over 3 Kg. Doesn't sound much, but with airline weight restrictions.... The lens has a built in retracting hood about 75 mm deep when extended - very useful for protection and stray light exclusion as well as dew prevention. The rig as shown here is in deep sky guiding mode, but for the eclipse photography only the 400L will be used.
Of course having bought the 400L lens, I had to test it with the Canon 350D camera. A sequence of 15 x 5 minute sub frames, ISO 800 at f6.3 yielded this shot of M81 and M82. Full size.
The owner of the 'shootout' site, also devised a system whereby using a Barlow type lens it is possible to use a diagonal and eyepiece. So I fired up my lathe and made a similar item using the bayonet adapter and other parts of a remarkably cheap but well made extension tube macro ring. Works well, and I was also able to make a fitting to use the lens with my ST4000 XCM. Unfortunately not enough back focus for the ST-10 with filter wheel. The focal length of the lens with the Barlowed system is around 1300 mm, so a finder is necessary. There was just enough room to fit a red dot unit on the adapter! I had earlier cobbled up a finder mounting block for my camera as also seen in the main picture, so all set :-)
A further experiment with the 400L lens bore fruit! The already good photographs are even sharper when the lens is stopped down to f6.3 or even f7.1 But this introduces substantial diffraction 'Star bursts' on bright stars due to the diaphragm blades. I found that by stopping down the lens using an external mask I obtained images even cleaner than with the diaphragm, and without star bursts. A modified lens cap makes an excellent removable mask, and has the advantage that if I am using the lens with my ST-4000XCM I don't need the Canon camera available to preset the stop. The star featured here is 2nd magnitude eta Bootis. This system seems to work well on most prime lenses, but experiments with zoom lenses showed substantial vignetting.
Postscript. Would you believe after all that work (and expense!) that shortly before the trip I have been informed that our luggage allowance was almost twice that originally expected. So no need for the weight worries and I could have stayed with the 80 mm telescope! Which I might now take as well. But the weight allowance on the charter flight to the eclipse viewing site is very tight, so the lens WILL be used! Update in August ;-)

The often imaged Markarian's Chain in Virgo contains an interesting pair of Galaxies, NGC 4438 (the larger one) and NGC 4435 , known as 'The Eyes' and deserving of closer attention. (Cropped from vertical full frame). The extreme distortions of 4438 are probably due to the proximity of 4435. Numerous background galaxies in this image, taken over two nights, 7th and 9th April 2010. Luminance 20 x 10 minutes, RGB each 7 x 5 minutes binned 2x2. ST-10XME with AO-8 and Astronomik filters on 12" LX200ACF at f7. Full size

Early April 2010 saw a nice evening conjunction of Venus and Mercury, and I was able to capture this photo on 7th. Panasonic TZ5 in Night Scenery mode - the camera set itself at 8 secs, f4.8, ISO 100. Large image
On 15th April, Venus and Mercury (now considerably fainter) were due to be joined by a very thin New Moon . I was expecting to be clouded out and indeed that was the case later. But earlier in the evening the weather gods were smiling and I was able to get this photo. Similar framing to the last one, (taken from the middle of the road just outside my front gate - just as well there's not much traffic!) but I pushed down the decrepit footpath sign which intruded in the last pic looking rather like a house end in silhouette!  Very murky horizon - a cloud of volcanic dust from an eruption on Iceland (Eyjafjallajökull volcano) was drifting over Europe and caused almost all air traffic to be grounded for several days with consequent massive and costly disruption. Maybe the murk is down to that. Large image
An image made available by NEODAAS/University of Dundee which shows the volcanic ash plume from Iceland, top left, to the north of Britain as received by NASA's Terra Satellite at 11.39 GMT Thursday April 15, 2010. All flights in and out of the UK and several other European countries were suspended as ash from a volcanic eruption in Iceland moved south. The UK's air traffic control service (Nats) said no flights would be allowed in UK airspace until at least 0700 BST on Friday amid fears of engine damage. The airspace restriction was the worst in living memory, a spokesman said. Photo: NEODAAS/University of Dundee/AP

More activity at the beginning of April 2010, this being captured on April 1st. A couple of active areas and an interesting prominence. Artemis 285 with Solarscope 50. Disc at prime focus, prominence with 2x2 barlow

I last imaged the barred spiral Canes Venatici galaxy Messier 106 in 2005 with the MX716 camera. About time for another visit to capture more of the faint outlying clouds of stars and gas, and hopefully finer detail. The small galaxy in the corner is NGC 4248. Data captured over two nights, March 10th and 21st. Luminance 24 x 10 minutes, RGB each 7 x 5 minutes binned 2x2. ST-10XME with AO-8 on 12" LX200ACF. Full size

After an extended Solar minimum it would seem that the Sun is finally becoming more active. A substantial prominence was visible for a few days in mid March. I was clouded for a couple of days, but was able to image it on 19th. Artemis 285 camera     Disc at prime focus, prominence close up with 2x Barlow, all on my Solarview 50 .       Some promising swirls below the filament. Nice to see some real action after a long wait!

Another clear (tho' not crystal clear) night on 9th March 2010. So I went for a target I've never imaged before - the attractive grand spiral galaxy NGC 2841 in Ursa Major. Apparently quite bright at magnitude 9.5, but a relatively low surface brightness. I had to use a reducer to obtain a guide star, so this was taken on the 12" Meade at f7. ST-10 with AO-8. Luminance 19 x 10 minutes, RGB each 6 x 5 minutes binned 2x2 Full size

Well I eventually DID get more data on NGC 3628, collected on the nights of 6th and 7th March. So here is the result. Luminance 44 x 10 minutes, RGB each 6 x 5 minutes binned 2x2. ST-10XME with AO-8 on 12" LX200R. This image appeared in the August 2010 isue of Sky at Night magazine. Full size

The second session of data collection (night of the 6th) showed an asteroid passing in front of the galaxy, identified as mag 15.3 Asteroid 14257 2000 AR97 Here it is on the first frame. I have made an animation of the pass which uses 15 frames, each was a 10 minute exposure. Unfortunately I missed four frames during the recording session, so there is a jump (40 minutes worth - grrr, I hadn't realised that the preset imaging sequence had ended!) Animated GIF here (444KB)

The evening of 4th March 2010 was also forecast to be clear for a while, and as I was out for the earlier part of the evening, again I wanted a fairly bright target that would only need an hour or so before the Moon rose. I had an image of M67 from earlier years, but it was well placed and nicely sized for the ST4000XCM on my 12" meade with a .7 reducer. A little hazy, probably contributing to slight haloing of the brighter stars. 6 x 10 minutes. Full size

With so many interesting 'faint fuzzy' deep sky targets, sometimes open clusters get overlooked. The evening of 2nd March 2010 was forecast to be clear for a while, and I wanted a fairly bright target that would only need a couple of hours work (before the Moon rose). On checking my images I realised that I'd never imaged M37! And it would fit beautifully into the frame of my ST4000XCM on my 12" meade with a .7 reducer. So here it is. I actually got 12 subs, but had to scrap the last 3 - thin cloud with a rising Moon raised the background level unacceptably. 9 x 10 minutes. Full size

In the post below of the Leo Trio, I said that NGC 3628 deserved a close up. And on 20th February 2010, although a late start, then later thin cloud followed by thicker cloud cut my efforts short, I've made a start. Probably no more data now until the Moon gets out of the way. 13 x 10 minutes, ST-10XME with AO-8 on 12" LX200R. Full size

Out of three nights staying at Kielder in early February 2010, only Saturday 13th offered any imaging opportunities. But it was beautifully clear for a few hours, also bitterly cold with a hard frost - Brr! So another chance to put the ST-4000XCM through its paces. This time the Leo Trio, M65, M66 and NGC 3628. 10 x 15 minute subs on Meade series 5000 127 mm with AP 0.7 reducer. Quite a large field, so cropped from the full frame. Thinks: It's time I did a closeup of the 'hamburger' (NGC 3628) Full size

At last! A crystal clear night on February10th, and although I was out earlier so didn't get started until 11 pm, nevertheless I managed almost four hours of data. Only one frame scrapped when the guide star was lost for some reason. Hazed over a little in the small hours, but no complaints. The Hickson 44 group of galaxies around NGC 3190 in Leo are all very different in type, and nicely framed in the SBIG ST-4000XCM at 2 metres focal length. 15 frames x 15 minutes on the one-shot colour camera have given it a good workout with a satisfactory result despite the relative faintness of the galaxies. 12" LX200R at f7. Full size

Typically some clear weather around Full Moon at the start of February 2010, so not suitable for deep sky imaging without narrowband filters. But on 2nd there was a 3 hour window of full darkness before the still bright (81%) Moon rose. So at last a chance to give the ST4000 a good workout. And what else but the Great Orion nebula, Messier 42 and adjacent area including the 'Fishes' Mouth' M43 and 'Running Man' NGC 1977. Main image 9 x 10 minutes, central Trapezium region patched from 6 x 2 minutes. I also took 6 x 5 minute subs, but haven't used them. A bit 'noisy' in the fainter outer regions - if I get the opportunity I'll take a set of longer subs, perhaps 20 minutes each to improve those areas. ST4000XCM with AO-8 and William Optics 0.8 reducer on Meade series 5000 127 mm refractor. Full size

Eventually a brief clearance on 14th January 2010 gave me a chance to try out the now desiccated ST4000, and I was able to capture a sequence of Messier 45 - the Pleiades or Seven Sisters. The camera worked well enough, but on processing I found that the field was unevenly focussed. The light of day showed me that the drawtube (which was almost fully retracted to accommodate the AO-8 unit with the William Optics 0.8 reducer/flattener) on my 80 mm refractor was slightly tilted, so one side was approximately 1/2 mm different from the other - enough I presume to affect the focus across the big chip at the f4.8 ratio (f6 scope with 0.8 reducer). I've adjusted the slide bars and it looks better. Next try will tell.... 8 x 5 minute subs, darks and flats applied. Obviously longer subs are required, but weather did not permit. But a reasonably promising start. What is particularly heartening is that I was using the rig on my Autostar DS motor driven EQ3-2 mount. And the AO-8 was able to provide all the correction needed without adjusting the mount at all, indeed it was well within its limits at the 3.9 arc-secs per pixel resolution. So an eminently portable system for medium to wide field imaging. No point in supplying a full size image - the quality is very mediocre.

Postscript - on 30th January after a prolonged cloudy spell, a clear night, albeit with some high thin cloud. Full Moon, so no chance of nebulosity, but a series of 5 minute exposures proved the focus adjustments to have been successful - much improved across the field, although still not perfect in the corners, but that is probably optical . The moonlight and haze accentuated the vignetting, but no point in applying flats etc. Same setup as before. Full size

After Christmas, I took delivery of a secondhand but hardly used SBIG ST4000XCM camera to complement my ST10XME, the intention being to use it for images with bright stars which would bloom horribly with my ST-10. Unfortunately it required several desiccant refreshes before it was usable, and in the meantime winter tightened its grip, leading up to the coldest snowiest period for 30 years. Although we occasionally saw some sunshine and blue sky, invariably the clouds thickened at night. So no first light by 11th January. But here is a daytime photo of my back garden and Observatory under snow. Taken on 6th January 2010. (The Observatory and birdbath had already been cleared of snow the previous day!) And there was more to come - by the next day another 3 inches or so, and the level snow was almost 14" deep next to the Observatory path!

The weather in December continued to deteriorate, culminating in a heavy fall of snow on 19th. And in the rare clear intervals, the Moon was brightening so no deep sky work. But on New Year's Eve there was the second full Moon of the month - a 'Blue' Moon. And to add interest there was also a partial eclipse. Only a small Umbral effect, and because of clouds I only managed to capture a few frames. This was the best, taken with my Canon 350D on the Meade 80 mm f6 refractor at prime focus (cropped from the full frame). Single frame, 1/640sec at ISO200. Full Size

NGC 2146 in Camelopardalis is a right mess, and consequently an interesting target. I imaged it a year ago in very poor conditions but when the sky cleared on 10th December 2009 after weeks of terrible weather conditions were superb. Mist in the valley over Hexham blocking most of the light pollution (see pic) meant that my overhead sky was very dark, and seeing was also good. So time for a return visit. Unfortunately I was out in the evening (rehearsing for a Christmas concert - it was that time of year!) so didn't get cracking until midnight. And by 4 am the Moon (and mist) had risen. Other problems from focus shift (lost 5 subs), dewing inside my LX - the wet windy weather of the last few weeks prevented me using my dehumidifier and humidity levels in the Observatory were almost 90%! But despite all these, I'm happy with the pic. Luminance 9 x 10 minutes, RGB each 5 x 5 minutes binned 2x2. ST-10 on 12" LX200R at f10 with AO-8. Full size

The open cluster NGC 457 in Cassiopeia is also known as the E.T. or Space Invaders cluster - easy to see why from its shape. Always a pleasure to observe visually and one I often return to. But the last time I imaged it was in November 2003, monochrome with my MX716 camera. about due for a revisit! The weather in November had been appalling, but the night of 30th was clear and cold. My ST-10 would bloom horribly on the main bright star in the cluster, 5th magnitude phi Cas, so I used my Canon 350D. Despite the almost full Moon, I managed a reasonable image with 12 x 3 minute sub frames, darks and flats, f6.3 on the 12" LX200R. Guided using a Celestron radial guider and QHY5 camera. Larger Image

In December 2008 I collected some data on Messier 1 - the Crab nebula in Taurus - over a couple of nights. But have overlooked it until now when M1 is again well situated for imaging. But now that I have processed it I'm quite pleased! ST-10XME on 12" LX200R with AO8. Luminance 20 x 5 minutes, RGB each 6 x 2.5 minutes binned 2x2. Full size (Cropped from full frame - some of the frames were slightly rotated on different nights.) This image was published in the February 2010 Astronomy Now magazine

Sunday 8th November 2009 was for me the first clear night for two weeks, other than (as always!) a few hours around Full Moon. For once the UK was a clear filling in a cloud sandwich instead of the other way around. But Sod's law proclaimed that I had to be away from home from 5 pm to 11.30 pm by which time the last quarter Moon was well up. So narrowband had to be the order of the night. I already had a satisfactory image of Messier 76, the Little Dumbbell in Perseus, but decided to see what it looked like in narrowband, and here is the result (cropped from full frame). Using the 'Hubble Palette' SHO, with Ha for luminance. All filters evenly combined in the colour stack, so it's obvious that OIII is the predominant emission - definitely the filter to use for visual! SBIG ST10 with Astronomik filters and AO8 on 12" LX200R at f10. Nice bright (mag 6) guide star, so correcting at 4 Hz despite the narrowband filters. But poor seeing around 5 to 6 FWHM even in narrowband. H-alpha 8 x 10 minutes, OIII and SII each 6 x 10 minutes. Flats made for each filter using my new DIY 'Light Board' Full size

A group of us stayed at Kielder the weekend of 24th October 2009. Unfortunately the weather was atrocious, and out of four nights only one imaging opportunity was available on the night of 25th. But the sky was pristine for about 3 hours, ample time to collect data on the Double Cluster, NGC 869 and 884 in Perseus. ST10 with AO-8 on Meade 127 refractor. Luminance 20 x 1 minute subs, RGB each 10 x 90 second subs.
The initial processing as can be seen produced substantial halos round the brighter stars. But prompted by the UKAI Group (!) I processed further, with this final result. Full size
Although I ended up with the halos pretty well all gone, I think this intermediate result is perhaps the more natural and maybe prettiest of them all. But beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so it's over to you, gentle reader! Full size

I attempted to capture the faint outer halo of M27 when in La Palma in 2008, but sky conditions defeated me. However a decently clear night in Hexham on 17th October 2009 gave me an opportunity before the target sank too low in the West. I started with 10 minute sub frames but soon realised more was needed, and moved up to 20 minute for the luminance images. Even then it needs deeper exposures, so next attempt I will try 30 minute subs! But now the year is advancing, and poor weather means it's unlikely I'll get another opportunity until next year. When I will use a shorter focal length - with the halo it's larger than expected. Two renderings, one Ha, O3, S2 for RGB, and one S2, Ha, O3 (Hubble palette). Luminance 6 x 20 minute Ha, colour each using Ha from the L, and 4x10 minutes each S2 and O3. SBIG ST-10XME binned 2x2 on 12" LX200R OTA at f7

Stephan's Quintet in Pegasus is a remarkable demonstration of colliding galaxies. I imaged it previously in 2007 with my ST8, but now I have the AO-8 unit, was able to obtain a better guided image on the night of September 20th 2009 - the night before going to Les Granges. For individual identifications 'mouse over' the medium sized image (click on the thumbnail). 18 x 10 minute Luminance subs and 5 x 5 minutes each RGB binned 2x2. ST10 on 12" LX200R at f10 with AO8. Full size

This image is really 'work in progress' - limited data over three slightly hazy nights in mid September 2009, each time interrupted by clouds, and different alignments. But it's really a high Summer object, and not feasible from my twilit latitude at that time. And I may not get any more data this year. So for what its worth... the mag 14.6 'Tadpole' galaxy, UGC 10214 (Arp 188) in Draco. SBIG ST10 on 12" LX200R at f10. 16 x 10 minute subs binned 2x2. Colour RGB each 4 x 10 minutes binned 2x2 The small elliptical galaxy lower left is mag 15.5 PGC 57108 and edge on lower right is mag 17.2 PGC2502068 . North is right.

Although the night of 25th July 2009 started off cloudy, for a while the Milky Way smiled on me, so having completed the Propeller the night before I quickly changed scopes and got some data before the clouds returned. I tried 5 minute subs binned 3x3 at first, but a bit on the noisy side, so back to 2x2 binning. The target is an extremely faint bubble of gas in Cygnus, only discovered in 2008. Classified PN G75.5+1.7, popular name the Soap Bubble Nebula. See here. 5 x 10 minute subs binned 2x2, ST-10 on 12" LX200 ACF at f7, H-alpha filter. Heavily stretched so still noisy - need lots more data, but it's a start!

A month later on 24th August the predominantly poor weather relented long enough for me to obtain more data, with this result. Heavily processed so still rather noisy despite over 3 hours of data. Maybe later in the year... Anyway, 2 hours of Ha and 40 minutes each of O3 and S2 gave me this 'Hubble Palette' (SHO) image. All subs binned 2x2, ST-10 on 12" LX200 ACF at f7

Another noctilucent cloud, this time on 19th July 2009. Taken looking North over Hexham around 11:20 pm. The cloud was isolated and soon dispersed, but reminded me of a whale cruising through the sky! The bright star in the middle is Capella. Panasonic TZ5 camera, 15 seconds using the 'Starry Sky' setting. Larger image. This image was published in the October 2009 issue of Astronomy Now.

This is still a work in progress, but for the moment here is a monochrome Hydrogen-alpha image of the 'Propeller' nebula in Cygnus, taken in the early hours of 16th July 2009 in a mixture of Nautical and Astronomical twilight. Variously catalogued as DWB-111, Simeis 57 and MRSL 479 . SBIG ST-10XME on Meade series 5000 127 (950 mm fl). 14 x 5 minute sub frames, binned 2x2.

Postscript: 24th July 2009 was a cracker - Milky Way and Cygnus rift clearly visible even from my 55 degree twilit latitude. Pretty good seeing as well, so I was able to get a lot of fresh data to add to my earlier cloud interrupted bits, including colour. So here's the final result. Luminance 24 x 5 minutes H-alpha, RGB each 5 x 5 minutes Ha, O3, S2. There was negligible O3 in the image, so the colour is predominantly red. All with the SBIG ST-10 binned 2x2 on Meade series 5000 127 refractor, prime focus. North is to the right.

On 6th July 2009, not only was it a sunny day, albeit with lots of puffy clouds scudding across the sky, but there was a decent spot visible! Designated AR 1024. Artemis 285 with Solarscope 50 (cropped when imaging) and 2x Barlow. Stack of 15 frames, captured during a break in the clouds.

I rarely use my little EQ3-2 mount for imaging - my Observatory Gemini and 'Star Party' EQ6 Pro are far more accurate. But it guided well during my visit to Les Granges in 2008, and I plan to take it on a trip in 2010 to the Southern Hemisphere, hopefully to photograph a Total Eclipse of the Sun near Tahiti, then some Southern sky objects both from Tahiti and further South during my trip which includes Tasmania. Due to weight and power supply requirements I won't be taking my SBIG or Artemis cameras, but will use my Canon 350D as the main imager. So I purchased a QHY5 guide camera which is powered direct from a USB port and will guide the mount via a standard ST4 system. Here is the full setup (wires omitted) using my Meade Series 5000 80 mm refractor and a 200 mm camera lens.

It seems a long time to go of course, but the light UK Summer nights are not conducive to deep sky faint object imaging, so a good time to experiment. Collinder 399 - the Coathanger or Brocchi's Cluster in Vulpecula is a beautiful binocular object and well suited for the fairly wide field of the setup, which includes a William Optics 0.8 reducer/flattener giving a focal length of 390 mm. And on the night of 3rd/4th July 2009 I obtained this image. 4 x 5 minute subs at ISO800. No darks or flats, but processing improved the background although it is still a little patchy. Hardly surprising considering a bright Moon and twilight. But satisfactory guiding, although not perfect - a full size image shows some trailing, but the resolution of the telescope is pleasing - the central hook star is resolved into a triple on one of the individual frames. Larger image.