Today the concrete was delivered by Gemmix. This time the concrete was not delivered pre-mixed but actually mixed on site, as you need it. This is a brilliant way to go as you only pay for what you need. I asked for a C35 mix again, but an equivalent mix called a P340 was used.
We built a level frame out of wood for the pier base, and then began wheelbarrowing the 20 or so loads it took to fill the hole. My Dad levelled out the pier base and used a board to flatten it and then a float to get it nice and smooth.
I actually used about 4 barrow loads more than my cubic metre I ordered, so the bill in the end for the delivery was £211.20 inc VAT, originally the cubic metre was priced at £182 inc VAT.
The mixture is now setting and should take about a week to completely set, so next up is the slab laying and drilling the pier holes in a few days time.
As I have just moved to a new house, it was now time again to build the shed observatory.
I did all this about 3 years ago, so it does not seem that long ago, plus this time it should be a lot easier as the shed is in pieces, with the pent shed observatory all ready to go and the insides of the shed are all ready and in pieces, so in a way it’s like putting a jigsaw together.
The shed is again going to face north/south, with the door being on the northern side, I mapped out the location in the garden for it in the corner. Making sure to check that the opening of the roof had enough room to open so it did not hit and cleared the neighbours fence on one side.
Again I was going to dig a 1 cubic metre hole, so I began by ordering a skip, last time I had a 2 yard skip, but I remember that the smaller skips don’t have an opening. So you can’t walk into the skip with the wheelbarrow and dump the soil. So this time I ordered a 3 yard skip, this does not have opening doors either, but it does have low ends, which means you can use a plank to walk the wheelbarrow into the skip. Just to note I paid £95 for the skip.
I knew there used to be a tree in the corner I was digging, but was amazed to find a lot of the tree roots just underneath the turf line. I actually started using a jigsaw to cut through the smaller roots, but there was also roots as thick as my leg. This meant that I had to borrow my dads longhandled axe to get through them all, which was hard work,
I suppose one good thing about digging around the base of a tree is that the soil was pretty good condition, as last time I dug this hole I went through builders rubble, brown clay and then grey clay at my old house.
Photoshop can be a hard program to get used to when it comes to preparing your astronomy images. Plus there are so many shortcuts and ‘black box’ type actions that imagers must use to make the kind of ‘woweee’ type images. But where do you learn all the tips and tricks, there certainly are not many training courses (though the Ian King ones are good!) there are no DVDs, and hardly any books on the subject. But at last there is a book on using Photoshop for Astronomy.
The book begins by looking at the digital darkroom, and everything you have in it. This includes your monitor and how to colour calibrate it, external hard drives and photo printers and accessories. There is also a section describing the details of the various digital image file formats. At the end of this chapter there is a simple recommended image processing workflow.
Chapter Two covers colour management, and how to calibrate your monitor and your printer, soft proofing, and it covers the various colour models – such as RGB, CMYK and HSB.
Photoshop Astronomy is an amazingly detailed book on how to manipulate your astronomy images to get the best out of them. Each step is shown in great detail.
The only downside to the book is that none of the images are in colour, only black and white. When you are paying nearly £50 for the book new, you would have thought we could have had some colour images and screenshots.
A CD accompanies the Photoshop Astronomy book which includes lots of different images to work on in order to hone your imaging skills. The CD contains example images from Chapter 2 to Chapter 12. The author has also included the final images on the CD, so you can see how they should or could look once completed.
My copy of Photoshop Astronomy was purchased from SCS Astro
In the past I have attached the Skywatcher Auto Focusers to my Skywatcher ED120 and ED80 DS-Pro models, so as soon as I purchased a new Skywatcher Equinox 66 I immediately went out and purchased another Skywatcher Auto Focuser and set to work attaching it to my Equinox 66.
These simple jobs rarely are simple as I was about to find out. The main problem I previously had with the DS-Pro models was that you had to completely remove the focuser in order to attach the DC motor part to the pin part of the focuser. This time with the Equinox 66 this problem also occurred – but so did the issue that the bracket supplied with the Skywatcher Auto Focuser does not fit/line up with the screw holes found on the underneath of the Equinox 66.
But don’t worry with a couple of extra drill holes in the bracket and some bashing of the bracket with a hammer the attachment of the Skywatcher Auto Focuser to a Skywatcher Equinox 66mm telescope is possible.
Step 1:
Remove the focuser knob from the single speed side of the telescope focuser by inserting an allen key into the hole of the focuser and loosening it.
Step 2:
Drill the extra 2 holes required in the bracket so that they match the screw positions on the bottom of the Equinox 66.
Step 3:
Now completely or as best you can loosen all the screws that attach the focuser to the telescope, you should then be able to move the focuser at an angle, or remove it completely. Slide on the DC motor onto the pin and tighten it with the supplied allen key. Make sure you tighten it in the right position by either laying the bracket in position or by actually fitting the bracket first to see if the screw holes line up between both parts.
Step 4:
With the motor in place now attach the bracket by using the 4 new screws supplied with the Auto Focuser. Be careful not to dislodge and lose the small rubber washers inside the telescope focuser when tightening everything up.
Step 5:
Now bring together the bracket and the DC motor and try screwing both parts together with the thumbscrews and metal washers provided with the Auto Focuser. If they do not align up very well, then you will need to remove the bracket and change the angle of the bracket to bend it to the correct position. I used a hammer for this.
The End: You should now have it completed. Just try it out.
Received my new Imaging Source DMK21-AU618 camera the other day, today was my first chance to use it. There was a lot of cloud about today and I did not start imaging until 3pm which was a bit late in the day, but I am happy with the images I took.
One thing I did try was a short C mount adaptor, as usually I use a 2.5x Powermate as I thought that was the only way to achieve focus on the Coronado PST. But now the short C mount does allow you to focus on the PST without the need of a Barlow. This now means that I can image a whole solar disc by stitching together just 3 images.
My good friend Mick Jenkins has just purchased a new QHY IMG132E camera from Modern Astronomy, and he has had a really good first night with the QHY IMG132E camera.
Mick has a Meade LX200 8″ telescope and was previously using a Celestron NexImage for lunar and planetary imaging.
Mick was stated as saying “I am very impressed with the image quality of the camera, the colour range, tonal range and sharpness. Jupiter shows Io and its shadow on the cloud tops and greater detail in the bands. All the Moon photos have a greater tonal range and detail compared with the webcam, the Cassini image was taken at 1200 x 1000 at 27 fps 600 frames”.
He went on to say “It wasn’t a particularly good night with some high cloud and I had to load the software and learn the new software, there are a lot more controls than the webcam, this QHY IMG132E has a lot of potential and I am looking forward to imaging Saturn and Mars”.
So he was very impressed with it, which makes me wonder if I should get one as well. I currently have an Imaging Source DMK21 mono, which is great for lunar and solar imaging, but it’s a pain having to change the filters to get a colour planetary image, so I may go for a colour camera next time, plus the DMK21 640×480 size is a bit small sometimes, so a bigger chip like the one on the QHY IMG132E would be better.
If you are looking for an easy to use star atlas then this is the only one you will need. It is so clearly laid out and easy to use it’s incredible. I can’t rate it highly enough.
Some people may prefer laminated pages, so they can be wiped clean, these are not. But this Star Atlas was designed for outdoor use though, it is spiral bound making it really easy to open out and turn back on its self.
The Cambridge Star Atlas contains a really good lunar map as well. The lunar features in the book are displayed in alphabetical order and in numerical order as they appear on the moon’s surface. The moon maps are also shown in mirror reversed order, as you would view it through an eyepiece.
The constellations are then shown for both the northern and southern latitudes across the various seasons. From here you then drill down into closer views of the constellations, which have page numbers watermarked on them, this denotes which page to jump to in order to see that part of the sky in full detail.
This star atlas also contains a handy list of the Messier objects, a list of the 96 brightest stars and also a list of the constellations.
At the rear of the book there are a number of pages showing all sky maps, the first one shows the constellations, then a distribution of open clusters, globular clusters, diffuse nebula, planetary nebulae and the distribution of galaxies.
The final table in the book contains a list of Exoplanets or extrasolar planets.
Overall this is a brilliant book, if you are looking for a Star Atlas or if you are bored of looking at a planetarium program on a computer screen to find your way around the night sky then buy this book, you won’t regret it.
This image of M31 the Andromeda Galaxy is usually seen as quite an easy target to image, especially for beginners like me. The main problem with it, is that it has a very bright core, but using DPP in Maxim soon sorted this out.
M31, Andromeda Galaxy was imaged using my Skywatcher 80mm ED-Pro telescope and guided with the attached 9×50 finderscope using a QHY5 camera all mounted on an EQ6 mount.
I took L,R,G,B images through Astronomik 1.25″ filters, the camera used was an Atik 314L+
Lx13,Rx10,Gx8,Bx10 all for 300 seconds (5 minutes).
Once they had been calibrated and aligned in Maxim DL, I used a DPP filter with a custom cutoff of something like 50%. I then used FITS Liberator to convert and stretch into TIFF files. Then imported into Photoshop and used curves, levels, high pass filters and various other filters to remove dust and speckles etc.
After doing some deep sky imaging I turned the scope onto Jupiter again and did some quick imaging through the 120ED with the Televue 2x Powermate and DMK21 camera. Small image, but I like to see the detail.
Last year after BBC Stargazing Live one of the most popular items was the Philips Planisphere, which Jonathan Ross used on the show to find the stars in the sky.
The Planisphere is the perfect tool for any amateur astronomer. It comes with full instructions on its use, so you can have a quick look at it and be out inspecting the night sky in only a few minutes.
The planisphere also explains how to find the major planets (Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn), sunrise and sunset as well as the positions of the constellations, season by season. Luckily, many of these instructions can be found on the back of the Planisphere itself (along with a Key to map symbols) so that you can always flip it over if you get stuck.
The Planisphere itself is sturdy, flexible and laminated so it won’t be affected by wet surfaces – which is useful if you find yourself outside and there’s a change in the weather. This makes it superior to any cardboard version.
Buy the Philip’s Planisphere from Amazon, makes a perfect Astronomy Gift for someone who wants to learn the night sky.
