Stargazing Basics Book Review

Stargazing Basics is a book for the beginner, it mainly covers what to look for when purchasing basic astronomy equipment including binoculars or your first telescope.

Stargazing Basics is divided into two main sections, the first describes the different types of telescopes you can buy and what to look for when purchasing binoculars. Every type of telescope is described, with a focus on those coming under a certain price bracket, in reality all those telescopes that you may choose when first making a purchase. But the first section is not just about telescopes, the book also briefly covers astronomy accessories which you may purchase at a later date.

Part two of the book entitled “What’s up There?” gives you an overview of the types of objects you may well see when using a beginner’s telescope. This is done using images and giving descriptions about the Moon, Sun, Planets, Nebulae, Galaxies, Stars etc.

There is a very large glossary at the rear of the book which takes up around 25 pages; this is a lot when the whole book is only 140 pages in total. But it can be very useful to have a glossary when you are starting out on as new topic and a lot of unknown words are used in the body of the book.

After the glossary there are some simple start charts you can use, as well as a list of the constellation names with descriptions.

Overall this is a very nice book for the beginner who wants to get into astronomy, it will certainly provide you with a lot of knowledge before you visit your local astronomy store and make a purchase of either binoculars or a telescope. Reading this book certainly would have helped me at the time.

It’s also nice to see that the author has not included images which represent objects what you won’t see through your first telescope. He has instead used his own images which mean you won’t be disheartened when you use your telescope for the first time and you don’t see in the eyepiece astronomy images like those produced by the big NASA telescopes.

Stargazing Basics is available at Waterstones

ISS and Russian Supply Module

Managed to get out and see the Russian supply module and the International Space Station travelling across the sky.

I was amazed to see them both travelling in perfect alignment across the sky, but the supply module was well in front of the ISS, by a long way.

This photo shows one line of the ISS and Russian supply module as both were travelling in the same line.

Astronomik OIII CCD Filter Review

I have now moved over to collecting Astronomik filters, I did have a selection of both Baader and Astronomik filters. I have now settled on Astronomik filters for my narrowband filter set.  It’s important to always stick with the same brand of filters, as they should then all be parfocal.

But don’t get me wrong I still like Baader filters as I still have a fringe killer, uv/ir  and solar continuum filters from them.

The thing I like best about the Astronomik filters is how slim they are, and I never have any trouble screwing them into filter wheels, they also don’t catch on filter wheels like the height of the Baader filters.

Due to the cost of 2″ versions of filters I have gone with the 1.25″ range of filters, plus the filters wheels in the 1.25″ versions are also cheaper, this one was from StayFocused.eu

The OIII CCD filter comes in the standard Astronomik no-frills box with a black foam backing. I was getting confused by the labels Astronomik put on their boxes, but now I think the white and black labels are the newer versions of the filters.

As the name suggests the OIII CCD filter comes with  a built-in IR-blocker up to 1150nm, so you don’t need an additional IR-blocker with this filter.

The Astronomik OIII CCD filter is a narrow band emission-line-filter for CCD photography. The filter lets the light of double ionized Oxygen of emission nebulae pass and blocks nearly the whole remainder of the spectrum where the CCD is sensitive.

The Astronomik OIII CCD increases the contrast between objects, in this case between the OIII emission line and the skyglow background. Our Astronomik OIII CCD completely suppresses the emission lines of artificial lighting (mercury (Hg) and sodium (Na)) and skyglow.

The full width at half maximum (FWHM) of 12 nm is optimal suitable for common CCD cameras and allows the use of very fast optics The optimal aperture ratio for the use of the filter is 1:3 to 1:15 with apertures of more than 6″ (150mm).

When using the Astronomik OIII CCD filter together with the H-alpha, OIII CCD and the SII CCD filters you can obtain three-color images of emission line objects (gas nebulae) from locations with very strong light pollution. To do so, you would take an image in three different wavelengths, select each one as a color-channel in Photoshop and paste them together as one single color image.

• 95% transmission at 496nm (OIII)
• 95% transmission at 501nm (OIII)
• Full width at half maximum 12nm
• Transmission from 494nm to 506nm
• Parfocal with other Astronomik filters
• Glass thickness: 1mm
• Completely resistant against high humidity, scratches and aging effects
• Diffraction limited, the filter will not reduce the optical performance of your telescope!
• Astronomik filters are delivered in a high-quality, long lasting, filter box

Astronomik OIII filters and other Astronomik filters can be purchased from StayFocused.eu

ISS Photograph with DSLR

Two nights ago I had a go at videoing the ISS with my telescopes by manually moving them myself to get the ISS on the CCD chip, only trouble a couple of nights ago was that the ISS was not very bright and it was not visible for very long.

So last night I decided to instead just capture the ISS light trail with my camera on a tripod.

I began by visiting Heavens Above and finding out when the International Space Station would be passing my location. You should always look to see how long the ISS is visible for (the longer the better) and how bright it will be (brighter the better).

I set my camera up on my tripod and set it the the manual setting and set the exposure to be 30 seconds with a 2 sec timer delay, so I did not record me shaking the camera by pressing the shutter button. I also opened my widest lens to 18mm.

The great thing about the ISS is that if you can look out for it on the horizon and see it coming, you can then get yourself ready, especially if the ISS is in sight for a number of minutes.

From my images below you see that 30 seconds is not really long enough in order to catch the trail across the whole width of the field of view. Next time I shall go to the bulb setting and choose my own exposure length, perhaps it will end up being about 1 to 1.5 minutes.

The interesting thing about the second photograph is that a jet also came overhead and you see that light trail as well. It was fairly cloudy at the same time but the ISS actually flew lower than the cloud layer so was still visible throughout the shot.

How To Make a Digital Camera Solar Filter

After buying my A4 sheet of Baader solar filter paper I have been making all sorts of filters.

The last of which has been a solar filter for my Canon 450D digital SLR camera, but my method of construction will work for any SLR camera, as its really simple.

I started with a flower shaped lens hood. I bought the lens hood a while back cheaply from someone in China on eBay, I think it only cost a few pounds.

I then cut out two circular pieces of cardboard to put either side of the circular solar filter paper. I cut them to fit just inside the lens hood. I then cut out the circular solar paper.

Cutting the solar paper can be a pain, it is best to cut the filter paper between two other sheets of paper and then remember that there is a really thin piece of transparent film on the solar paper which needs to be removed once the shape has been cut out.

I previously used scissors to cut out the solar paper, but for this attempt I used a very sharp scalpel.

I then placed squares of double sided sellotape around the cardboard circles, in order to hold the cardboard onto the solar paper, be careful not to get fingerprints on the solar paper.

Then place the filter into the lens hood and I just used standard sellotape to tape the cardboard part of the filter to the plastic sides of the lens hood.

I then screwed on my new solar filter and took an image, usually I would take video of the sun with a CCD camera and then stack the results to get a final image. This time I took the sun image below with my DSLR at a setting of 1/4000th second at ISO100 with my 300mm lens.

I then played about a little with the brightness and contrast and colour levels with a photo editor program.

You can just make out two sunspots (1080) on the top right handside.

Observing the Universe Book Review

Observing the Universe, A Guide to Observational Astronomy and Planetary Science is a full colour astronomy book which has been compiled by a team of experts from The Open University. The book has been designed for students who are undertaking observational work in astronomy and planetary science, but is suitable for amateur astronomers.

The book begins with looking at the basics of our planet and its rotation together with the orbit of our planets in the solar system. There is a small section on how to use astronomical software programs as well as planispheres. The next section describes the different types of telescopes and how they work as well as the different types of telescope mountings.

There is a section on spectrographs and astronomical detectors, which are really CCD cameras. There are some interesting sections on reducing CCD data including details on bad pixels, bias and dark subtraction and even flat fielding.

The next sections of the book are about photometry and spectroscopy, there are scary equations in this section. Photometry is the technique of measuring the brightness of astronomical objects.

The second half of the book is given over to preparing for practical work in astronomy. This section really is for students or amateurs who want to start doing astronomical maths so to speak. This section instructs you how to keep observation records, and how to deal with experimental uncertainties, such as calculating standard deviations. There is also information on how to use calculators and computers and how to make use of graphs for astronomical research.

The back of the book contains answers to the questions asked at the end of every section and chapter of the book, there is also an extensive glossary.

Overall, Observing the Universe is a very good book, and it’s in colour. This makes it a great beginners astronomy book or for a student or someone who wants to get further into astronomical science and start to gather and work with astronomical scientific data.

Observing the Universe is available at Waterstones

Solar Sunspots and Granulation

I managed to do a bit of imaging today as the Sun was out all day. I went and purchased a sheet of A4 Baader Solar Filter paper from Green Witch the other day, they were the cheapest place I could find, plus I got my SPA discount as well. It also gave me my first chance to visit them in Dry Drayton.

Anyway, I produced a couple of solar filters for my LX200 and my ED80 Pro from the paper sheet so was dying to try them out (which was a nightmare trying to cut, as I couldn’t stop my fingers leaving fingerprints on the paper, plus you need to remember to remove a really thin piece of plastic that is attached to the filter paper).

Both worked really well, I have also just purchased a 2nd hand DMK21 camera, which is so much better than my SPC900 webcam, which I about to sell. So imaging with this was fun as the more practice I get on the DMK21 the better. I also used my Baader Solar Continuum filter which I have had for ages but never really got to use as I did not think that the SPC900 gave enough brightness of the object to use a dark green filter, but the DMK21 handles it with ease as you have a lot more control over your gain, exposure and gamma settings.

The great thing was that I was able to record granulation on my images, something I could never do with the SPC900 webcam, maybe it’s the Baader Solar Filter paper that made it possible, but I think it was really the DMK21 camera.

I processed them all in Registax 5 and then added some false colour in Fireworks. The distant image was taken with a Skywatcher ED80 Pro and the close-up shots with my 10″ LX200.

Saturn Talk by Carolin Crawford

I went to my local Ely Astro Club on Friday night, at the Ely Museum. I had heard Carolin talk before a couple of times at the Cambridge Institute of Astronomy and so I knew her talks are really good.

Tonight the talk was about everything to do with the planet Saturn. Carolin started by talking about the planet itself, and I had forgotten it was a gas giant, and that most of what we see is atmosphere, with the actual planet itself being a lot smaller.

The rings were the next thing to be discussed, and it was surprising that the rings are only about 100m in height. Carolin then thoroughly covered details of all of Saturn’s moons.

As usual the slides and images from Cassini were brilliant, altogether a great talk.

If you want to attend the Ely Astro Club in Cambridgeshire, the meeting is on every 2nd Friday of the month at the back of the Ely Museum – The Old Gaol, Market Street, Ely, CB7 4LS. For more details have a look at the clubs website here: https://sites.google.com/site/elyastroclub/

UFO Lands on my Lawn

I awoke on Sunday morning to find an unusual object on my lawn. A lot of people mistake these items in the sky for UFO. Of course they are chinese flying lanterns.

It’s the first one I have ever seen close-up, let alone one at it’s end of life state. But I was impressed by how bio-degradeable they are.

They are made up of a paper bag with not a metal circle at the base, but it’s actually a wooden made circle and the crosshair struts which hold the lighted area are made of string. I think the base of the area that you light is also made of cork.

After an hour or so it started to rain, and then the whole thing just broke down into a soggy mess.

If you are interested in trying one out, you can buy chinese lanterns from all over the web including Firebox,  Play.com and Amazon

The Handbook of CCD Astronomy Book Review

The Handbook of CCD Astronomy sounds a perfect title for an amateur to learn everything about how to use my Meade CCD camera with my telescope. Thing is, this is no book for the amateur astronomer, but really for the research astronomers, academics and professionals.

The book begins by telling you everything about CCDs including the manufacturing process, the various types of CCDs and how they work. There are also some interesting sections on CCD pixel size, pixel binning as well as flat fielding. The book covers some very in-depth CCD topics such as how to calculate read noise and gain, and signal to noise ratio.

The book contains a great deal of graphs, diagrams and mathematical equations, well over my head as an amateur astronomer, but I did find some parts of the book good for explaining certain things such as how CCDs work and about flat fields.

The chapters in the book are titled CCD manufacturing and operation, Characterisation of Charge-Coupled Devices, CCD imaging, Photometry and astrometry, Spectroscopy with CCDs and CCDs used in space and at short wavelengths.

The Handbook of CCD Astronomy ends with a CCD reading list, CCD manufacturers list and some basics of image displays and colour images.

Handbook of CCD Astronomy is available at Waterstones