Astronomy Log

Saw Adam Hart-Davis discussing his new series entitled The Cosmos on BBC Breakfast TV this morning, from the clips it looks really good and a definite must watch for us astronomers.

The series spans five weeks.

First Episode of The Cosmos - Tue 7 Aug, 7:30 pm - 8:00 pm

Life in the Cosmos

Are we alone? In this edition of the cosmos-exploring series, Adam Hart-Davis joins alien hunters at the huge new telescope in California dedicated to receiving the first message from intelligent beings. He meets Frank Drake, pioneer of the search for extraterrestrials, who has calculated just how many aliens might be out there. And he reveals why microbes from Devon are being sent into space to find out if life could once have survived an interplanetary trip.

Also, Janet Sumner investigates a new way to detect life on Mars, using a probe made with living material from Earth. Dr Doug Vakoch of the Interstellar Messaging Composition Group who is working out how we should reply to a message from space. And Adam asks: what if the aliens are listening to us? He finds out how far into the cosmos our ancient broadcasts have travelled.

What a bright night sky, due to the full moon, which was incredibly bright tonight. The brightness of the moon literally blinded me when looking through either the viewfinder or an eyepiece. The brightness also knocked out a lot of the night sky and a number of stars became invisible.

This brought it’s own new challenges when trying to complete some photography, the webcam needed to be set to a low brightness and the digital camera required lots of experimentation to get some pictures of the moon.

Most of the pictures were taken at ISO100 at 1/25 second exposures. I then brightened them with the auto levels in Fireworks.

I also finally managed to located the Andromeda Galaxy, which through my telescope looked like a small hazy disc, but I was pleased to located it at last.

I also manually found the Ring Nebula again, it did look quite small, too small infact for me to get any photographic evidence, as I just could not get focus on either the ring nebula or the andromeda galaxy. I may try again at a later date or when I have a bigger telescope.

I stayed out until 1.30am, and at that time the temperature was about 8 degrees, and it felt cold for summer! Anyway at that time I checked Starry Night Pro and discovered that Mars was now starting to appear on the horizon. Amazing my first view of Mars, it was definitely orange coloured if not a little small in my telescope. Hopefully we will be seeing a lot more of Mars in the coming months, at an earlier time of the day, enabling me to get some photographs.

I could not believe it another clear night. I decided to out a bit earlier tonight whilst it was still light and set up. The moon was out and a nice site in my garden. I decided to try and take some video of the moon using my Philips SPC900 to try and compare the output with the Logitech Quickcam Pro4000. It was also a good time to try out my Canon SLR on the moon.

The only problem going out so early with the laptop in tow was that lots of mosquitos were attracted by the light and the taste of me! So I darted back inside to cover myself in insect repellant, which seemed to not do too much, it wasn’t until the laptop was turned off and it got darker that they seemed to leave me alone.

The video of the moons surface using the SPC900 was not great as the VLounge software kept setting itself to 15fps, which I don’t think is high enough, as the video did seem to judder occasionaly, unless the 15fps was too high and the laptop could not handle the recording, but I am sure I set the Quickcam to video at a faster frames per second than 15 and that was ok. So I only have stills to show you.

Anyway, below are some shots of the moon I managed to get with the DSLR.

There was a lot of trial and error with taking the photos, most of the time I used a 2x barlow on the end of the camera adaptor or put an eyepiece inside the camera adaptor. Where the moon is shown whole - these were taken with no magnification at all (prime focus) just with the camera attached to the telescope.

I have also made up a collage of shots below, to make one large shot, click on the image below to see the full shot.

My wife also sneaked out and took a photo of me and my set up.

The second clear night in a row - was this possible? Tonight (19th July 2007) I decided not to take out the telescope but just take out my new Canon 400D and my remote control and tripod.

I had ideas of trying out the Bulb setting which everyone talks about and trying out some photography from a static tripod using the remote control that I purchase from eBay - actually the tripod was from eBay as well!

Anyway, I put my camera onto manual and then the bulb setting and this time remembered to put the lens onto MF - (manual focus). I then directed my camera at the heavens and took some photos at varying exposure times.

I kept darting back into the house to view the photos on my laptop under red light provided by my red torch to see how well I was doing.

The problem I had looking back was that I did not keep an exact record of what exposure times I was using etc. I must remember to takes notes next time on the settings used and exposures used etc.

Anyway below are the best three photographs I managed to make. I did play with the photos a little in Fireworks, but it appears that most people use PhotoShop instead, so I need to really look at using this, especially because it has a lot of extra plugins available, including astronomy plugins.

At last after what seems forever there was a clear night on the 18th July. The only problem was that because it had been raining earlier in the day the dew level was amazing.

The telescope was absolutely soaking, and I was more worried for my laptop and new Canon 400D - but I had to make the most of the clear skies.

I played about with the Canon 400D and tried out my new T ring and adaptor, I started looking at Jupiter and inserted a 9mm K9 into the camera adaptor but the focus was not great, so I went back down to 15mm Plossl and took some photos, the best of which is below:

I still have a problem with getting blurry images, because my mount and telescope is not motor driven.

Then I tried to take some pictures of the heavens with the Bulb setting on my Canon camera on my other tripod, but everytime I tried to open the shutter for a set amount of time, but the camera just made a backward and forward noise and that was it, so I went into the garage and turned the light on and the Bulb function began working, I could not figure this out, so I asked a question on CloudyNights and I have found out that when outside in the dark I need to change the lens on the camera to MF - Manual Focus instead of AF Auto Focus - which I had it on - never mind, you live and learn!

Finally I retreated off of the wet grass and onto the patio and went hunting for my first site of the Ring Nebulae. Well after star hopping and with help from Starry Night Pro, I managed to actually find it, I have no photo to show you, but I was amazed to have found it! It did not look as good as you sometimes see it in books, as my poor old 5″ 130N was not really up to the job, perhaps I need an LX90 and fast!

Just a quick post to tell you all my Philips Webcam SPC900NC arrived today. It appears that all Pixmania products are shipped from France. Anyway I have managed to take the webccam apart and screw in the webcam adaptor, now I just need a cloud free night to give it a go and compare it against the Logitech Quickcam Pro 4000.

I shall also add a post on how I took apart the SPC900NC/00 and screwed in the adaptor, also about how the installation went on my laptop and where to get the latest drivers etc

As a very amateur astronomer I find it hard to locate objects in the sky, it could be me or my Meade Bresser 130N, but anyway, I tried polar aligning the telescope last night to Polaris and set the latitude to about 52 degrees, then reset the declination to 90 degress, or on my scopes mount 9 - is this right? I then set the RA to 0 - is this also correct??

I then chose a close star in Ursa Major (Plough) and moved the telescope using the dials on the mount to the correct RA and Dec as seen in Starry Night Pro, but on arriving at my star I found my telescope to be pointing in the wrong location, after manually correcting the telescope myself onto the star, I then looked down to the mounts RA and Dec settings to find that the Dec was correct but the RA was about 2hours out - well I think it was two hours as the main points on it are I think in hour segments and within those are 6 markings, which I imagine to be ten second markings. Maybe I was not correctly on Polaris in the first place - who knows!

It appears to me that the mount is ok for losely pointing you in the direction of the sky you need to be in, but the settings are so exactly shown in Starry Night Pro, but you just can’t get this sort of precision with these mounts. Agree / Disagree?

Has anyone else had fun setting up and using setting circles, can anyone give me advice on setting up and using them?

Now I must be really getting the astronomy bug, as just a few days after ordering a Philips SPC900 webcam, I have jumped in with both feet and ordered a Canon 400D SLR Digital Camera from Comet, which was a good price as they gave me £40 off by using a code - ‘SUMMER40′ if I spent over £400 (or SUMMER30 if you spend over £30, and SUMMER20 if you spend over £20 - but that ends Friday 13th July), plus there is a cashback off on at the moment of £50 when you buy a Canon, so that should make the camera £389 with free delivery.

I went for the 400D instead of the 350D, as I thought with me constantly taking off the camera lens and adding the telescope adaptors that dust may get into the chip, but the Canon 400D has a shake clean mechanism to remove dust from the sensor, plus alot of other astronomers and amateur photographers seem to have this camera - although that does not make it good!

I then just need to purchase a nice tripod, case, remote control, memory card and of course the all important t adaptors in order to rig it up to the telescope - does this spending on this new hobby ever end?

I finally went for it and ordered a Philips SPC900 webcam from Amazon, which is actually being sold through Pixmania, but the postage is less through Amazon than purchasing it direct with Pixmania - strange.

The Philips SPC900 is costing me £46 delivered. Now after trying my Logitech Pro4000 webcam I can actually compare both the webcams when it comes to astronomy use, and luckily the webcam adaptor that I purchased for the Logitech Pro4000 webcam will still fit on the Philips SPC900.

I also noticed on my travels that you cannot buy the Logitech Quickcam Pro4000 anymore as it has been superseded by the Logitech Quickcam Pro5000, but I imagine after looking at the logitech website that the CCD chip and insides are the same as the 4000, the best price though if you are looking at the 5000 does seem to be PCWorld at around £30.

As soon as I get it and get a clear night, I shall try it out and report back with comparative images from both webcams.

As I live close to the ScopesNSkies store, I popped down there the other day to purchase a webcam adaptor and a 4x ImageMate to use with my Logitech Pro 4000 webcam.

I have now noticed on their website that I now have been caught on film and can actually be seen in the showroom looking round - at last I’m famous and can be found on their site!

That’s me on the left hand side in the nice stripey shirt.