Astronomy Log

O’Reilly is not known for being specialists in publishing astronomy books, so it is nice to see an astronomy book from them. O’Reilly are already well known for their hacks series of books on a number of subjects and this book contains 65 astronomy hacks covering everything you need to know in order to make the most out of your nights observing.

The 65 astronomy hacks are divided into four chapters. These are Getting Started, Observing Hacks, Scope Hacks and Accessory Hacks.

There are lots of tips and advice in this book, such as what to pack for nights observing, how to protect your night vision, how to learn urban observing, how to upgrade your Dobsian mount.

There are also other tips on how to align your viewfinder, how to maintain logbooks, how to clean your eyepieces and how to tune your Newtonian reflector for maximum performance.

Astronomy Hacks contains a number of images and diagrams and is a great read, also a useful reference. It’s nice to be able to read just one hack at once, which is shorter than a normal book chapter.

So my first night out with my new Canon 75-300mm USM lens. The Pleiades seemed to be the best test for this new lens on my tripod. So here are some images:

This first image was 5.6f, ISO800, 300mm focal length and a 2 second exposure.

The second pleiades star trail image was 5.6f, ISO800, 300mm focal length and a 30 second exposure.

The individual members of this cluster range from Alcyone at magnitude 2.9 down to very faint stars, probably 500 or more in all. Much of the cluster is enveloped in a blue reflection nebula, known as the Merope Nebula.

A popular name for the cluster is the Seven Sisters, Nine of the stars have names.

The Pleiades were the seven mythological daughters of Atlas and Pleione, and their parents are represented by the two easternmost bright stars.

Since purchasing my Canon 400D with its 18mm-55mm lens I have thoroughly enjoyed using it, especially for taking night shots of the sky using the bulb setting. But as the whole point of owning an SLR camera is to be able to change the lens, I thought it was about time to purchase a new one.

I decided that I did not want to spend hundreds of pounds on a new lens, so I decided upon a 75mm-300mm Canon lens, which does not have IS (Image Stabilisation). After looking around the internet I found that the cheapest price from a retailer like Amazon was around £175, so I decided to look on eBay, where I found a company selling them for around £120 including delivery.

Well today I received it, I think it was cheaper because it was a US version and I have tried it out in the daytime, and it makes me feel like a private detective or part of the papparazi when using it.

But I do like it, I now want to know what kind of astronomy images it will produce with the extra zoom.

The 75mm-300mm USM Lens is available at Argos, Jessops, Amazon and eBay.

Every night when I am out in the garden, I hear rustling in the bushes of the hedgehogs doing the rounds looking for food. When I first heard the rustling in the dark I wondered what it was, but now I know when the hedgehogs are coming and going as they make a ’scraping’ sound with their spines under the back gate.

Boy do they move fast with those little feet, and they also scratch themselves a lot with their back feet, must be the fleas!

So here is an image of one of my friends the hedgehog, who visit me most nights, and whom I am now used to seeing and hearing!

My apologies to the hedgehog if the flash momentarily blinded you!

What a great night last night, a really clear night with the odd small cloud overhead. I decided to look for the Dumbbell Nebula M27 last night, and I had a rough idea where it was, but I managed to find it after about two minutes, sometimes the night sky seems very small, sometimes massive!

Well anyway, I managed to carry on taking pictures of the constellations and I managed to get Delphinus, Equuleus and Sagitta in this shot below:

I have drawn the outlines of Delphinus, Equuleus and Sagitta over the previous photo in the image below:

I posted last week about how you could get a free Sir Patrick Moore autobiography with 6 months of Sky at Night Magazine (see the post here), well today I took the plunge myself and ordered the magazine.

I went for the 6 month subscription for £18.95, on direct debit, but this does get me the free book and it allows me to try the magazine for 6 issues and then decide if I like it, if not then I shall just cancel my Sky at Night magazine subscription direct debit online and then perhaps try Astronomy Now for a year.

The free Sir Patrick Moore autobiography offer is still available with Magazine Group

Following along from my mapping of all the asterisms in the sky by just using my Canon DLSR with an 18-55mm lens, I have now taken Perseus and learnt how the asterism is constructed via its stars, I also managed to just get Triangulum and Aries in the photo as well.

Now the picutre below has the outline of the asterisms added:

Pathways to Astronomy (ISBN 0072922087). The beginning of the book contains some really nice pages of various parts of the night sky constellations in full colour and what interesting sights to look out for in the sky, including M101, M81, M82, M31, M45, M57, M16 and a lot more.

Pathways to Astronomy is split into five parts, these are the cosmic landscape, probing light and matter, the solar system, stars and stellar evolution and finally galaxies and the universe.

The cosmic landscape part covers the basics of astronomy including the geometry of the moon, sun and earth as well as lunar cycles and an introduction to astronomical formulae and functions.

Part two covers Newton’s law, orbital velocities, conservation laws, the electromagnetic spectrum, and Doppler shift, focusing light and how to observe space.

Part three covers the solar system including our solar systems planets including asteroids, comets and about impacts on earth.

Path four covers the stars and stellar evolution including giant and variable stars, exploding white dwarfs, neutron stars, black holes, star clusters and about the sun.

Part five covers galaxies and the universe including details on the gas and dust in the Milky Way and the mass and motions in the Milky Way. Dark matter, cosmology and astrobiology and the search for life elsewhere are also included.

Starry Night Pro on CD accompanied my copy of Pathways to Astronomy which is an excellent piece of astronomy software.

The appendices include a wide range of tables and information about astronomy formulae and tables giving you information on stars, satellites, the nearest stars and more. Also included is the table of periodic elements. The rear of the book also includes a glossary of astronomical terms together with a fold out map of the constellations in the northern and southern hemisphere.

Pathways to Astronomy are a very large and concise book on astronomy. At the end of each chapter there are key terms, questions for review, problems to solve and a set of questions to test your self.

Pathways to Astronomy contains some amazing full colour photographs of the solar system together with some really clear and concise drawings which help to explain certain topics. If you are after a really concise book on astronomy then Pathways to Astronomy is an excellent book and an excellent study guide book.

Pathways to Astronomy is available at Amazon

After using the BBC iPlayer for about two weeks now, I am finding it pretty good. So far I have downloaded The Cosmos which I forgot to record as well as a BBC Drama.

I managed to miss the first showing of The Sky at Night - Black Holes and Black Magic, now I know there are repeats of The Sky at Night during the week which is good (although The Cosmos is not repeated during the week), but I can’t wait for the repeat, so tonight I downloaded The Sky at Night onto my laptop to watch tomorrow.

The BBC iPlayer is a good idea if you have missed a show on TV and it’s not repeated, the only problem is that you can only download programmes transmitted in the past 7 days, I think they could do with setting it to 14 days or longer.

Just to let you all know I managed to find a subscription to BBC Sky at Night Magazine for £18.98 for 6 months, or £38 for 1 year + FREE Patrick Moore Autobiography.

The normal cover price of BBC Sky at Night is £4.25, but this offer makes it just £3.16 an issue plus you get a free book.

The offer is with Magazine Group and this offer is limited! Find this offer here.