FocusMax Downloads

Over the years I have kept a few copies of Focusmax on my computer. So because Focusmax is not free anymore and v3 is no longer supported I decided to put them available for download onto this blog.

Focusmax Downloads – a few old v3 files

Comet Lovejoy Video C/2014 Q2

This a short Comet Lovejoy video that I have looped a few times. It was taken from stills I took on 10th January 2015. These are about 18 Luminance frames of 4 minutes each taken with an Atik 460EX Mono Camera with an Altair Astro 80mm triplet telescope on an EQ8 mount.

Comet Lovejoy Images – C/2014 Q2

These are my processed Comet Lovejoy images. I don’t think they are that great, I found them really tricky to process. The 1st time I have had the joy (no pun intended) of imaging a comet that moves so fast.

I gave up trying to process the RGB frames, as I tried imaging the comet unguided for 4 minutes, which seemed to work OK, no star trails and a sharp comet. But then I also tried guiding on a background star and guiding on the comet itself.

The problem I found with guiding on a star is that as the red, green and blue are taken in a row that the comet has moved so you cannot align the sky background and get the comet aligned at the same time, the same is true if you guide on the comet, then you get multi-coloured star trails of RGB.

I think in future I will try my DSLR on the 80mm scope for imaging comets at a high ISO, then at least you are capturing colour data in every shot.

These were taken using an Atik 460EX Mono Camera, with an Altair Astro 80mm triplet telescope on an EQ8 Mount. 4 minute frames, about 15 stacked.

Choosing and Using Astronomical Filters Book Review

Choosing and using astronomical filters book

Every astronomer uses filters, whether you are an imager or an observer. At last there is now a book that covers all the different types of filters that you can use at night or during the day.

The book covers light pollution filters, planetary filters, solar filters, ND filters for lunar observing and the range of filters for Deep sky imaging.

The book starts by looking at all the different Wratten coloured visual filters and it talks about the different types of telescopes.
Chapter 3 covers lunar observing with Neutral Density filters, yellow, blue and polarizing filters. At the end of this chapter are some really nice lunar maps taken during the lunar calendar. Unfortunately they have been crammed into 2 pages and you can’t read the maps – shame. These maps should have been given their own pages.

Chapter 4 is all about using filters when observing and imaging planets. Each planet is discussed in detail as well as the different filters that work best with that planet. There are black and white images throughout the chapter.

Chapter 5 is all about solar filters, Herschel wedges, Mylar etc. Solar Continuum filters, Calcium K, Hydrogen Alpha and Neutral Density filters are discussed in detail. This chapter includes lots of colourful solar images.

Chapter 6 covers filters for astrophotography, including narrowband – Hydrogen Alpha, Hydrogen Beta, OIII and SII filters as well as broadband – luminance, red, green and blue filters. There are also details about UV/IR filters and sky glow filters.

Finally there is a small section on how to process your images. A good part of the end of the book lists what images you can view or image and which filters work best on those objects. Each object also has an image which is nice and a description. This section is well laid out and each object is given its own page.

Overall this is a very nice book, and the first one that concentrates solely on filters. The most useful part of this book for me is the list of objects and what filters work best on that object. IC, Messier and NGC objects are included in this sizeable list.

Concise Catalog of Deep-Sky Objects is available at Amazon

Concise Catalog of Deep-Sky Objects Book Review

Concise Catalog of Deep-Sky objects – Astrophysical information for 550 galaxies, clusters and nebulae. 2nd edition.

This information book covers 520 northern hemisphere objects and 30 southern hemisphere objects. So the book covers the most common objects. This is the 2nd edition of the book, and this time the book contains images of the Messier objects.
The book begins with a small introduction describing what each piece of information against the object is about. The book is then divided into 3 sections, the Messier objects, NGC objects and the IC objects.

All 110 Messier objects are included, as well as 400 Herschel objects, 110 NGC objects and 30 southern hemisphere objects.
In the Messier section all M objects are accompanied by a black and white image.

The main information that accompanies each object is the constellation name, object type, RA and Dec co-ordinates, approx. transit date, distance from us, object’s age, apparent angular size and the objects magnitude. All objects also have a description/notes section.

Overall this is a good reference book and something you may pick up from time to time. It’s nice to see images of every Messier object in this edition, and they are all amateur, shame they are all in black and white though.

One way this book could be improved is if each object with an image was given its own page, as on a lot of objects you have to turn the page to see the corresponding image.

I think the objects chosen in each catalogue are really good. If I could have the ultimate book it would give basic information about the object, but very good astrophoto’s would accompany each object and then a write up by the imager of how that object was recorded would be perfect. But I know that’s a tall order and would take a long time to write. There is a 100 deep sky objects book, which is really good, it just needs enlarging.

Concise Catalog of Deep-Sky Objects is available at Amazon

Comet Lovejoy 2014 Data for TheSky 6

Here is some data I used for getting the comet to appear on my copy of TheSky 6, as the import from web feature no longer seems to work. I am sure this data would work in other planetarium programs as well.

Eccentricity, Perihelion Distance, Orbital Inclination, Argument of perihelion etc.

Horsehead Nebula and Flame Nebula

Horsehead Nebula and Flame Nebula taken on 6th January 2015. Taken in Ha, 14x5min frames, on an Altair Astro 80mm Triplet telescope with Televue x0.8 reducer, Atik 460 mono camera and EQ8 mount.