Meade MySky

It was amazing to see the Meade Sky gadget on Channel Five last night on The Gadget Show, when it was up against the Sky Challenger Picoo Z helicopters and won.

The MySky is definitely an amazing gadget, and particularly useful if you want to add GPS functionality to your Meade Non-GPS telescope.

The only thing that worries me is that from the image above, people may think that what you are looking at on the screen is actually a live shot of what is in the sky, when it is really just images stored on the MySky.

I have written more about the Meade MySky here.

The Meade My Sky is available for £196 online here.

Imaging Mars with a Webcam, 2nd Attempt

This was my 2nd attempt at imaging Mars with my Philips SPC900 Webcam. This time I decided to go out a bit later, so headed out at around 10.30pm and started imaging at 11pm. Leaving it later in the evening meant that Mars was in Gemini and quite high in the sky, so hopefully the atmosphere would not affect my imaging so much.

This time I made sure that VLounge software was recording at 10fps, I also played around a lot more with the setttings.

Both images are the same, just at different resolutions and magnifications.

This image was stacked in Registax 4 and the clip length was around 2 minutes. I originally took the clip at 10fps, but now I have looked back at the .avi, it says the fps is 24, this may be because I had to convert the original .mpg clip into an .avi

I did not use a Barlow, so it was taken at f10, I did try to use a 4x ImageMate, but this was just too powerful, so I stuck to just using the webcam with the UV/IR filter.

I am a lot happier with these images, and I am learning a lot doing this. I think the next step is to try and fill more of the CCD chip with the red planet. This means getting hold of a good quality 2x Barlow lens.

Webcam Imaging Mars

As Mars is very prominent in the sky at the moment, I feel it is my mission to try and get the best possible image I can whilst I have the red planet in sight.

I purchased a new Baader UV/IR lens the other day so I was really itching to give it a go. I used my Philips SPC900 web-cam, and I took around 100 seconds of video each time at 10 frames per second and 15 frames per second, in order to get lots of frames to put into Registax.

I still do all my recording in the supplied Philips VLounge software, although I don’t think this is the best way to go about it, one reason is because the output format is .MPG and I have to then convert it to .AVI to get it into Registax, which is a real pain.

See my second attempt for better Mars images. I have learnt a lot since this post.

You can make out some terrain marks of Mars in the image, but I want more! I still think I can get a better image, as this footage is a bit fuzzy and kind of out of focus. The video was taken when Mars was quite low in the sky. As at the moment I just can’t stay out too late as it’s so cold outside by the time Mars is high in the sky, but hopefully during December and January I should be able to get some more imaging done. I am also reading The Lunar and Planetary Webcam User’s Guide book, so hopefully I should pick up some more tips from this book.

National Geographic Star Planetarium

On my travels around the internet I found the National Geographic Star Planetarium. This planetarium can transform a room into a space theatre. A Cyber Sky CD-ROM comes with it and is packed with facts and ancient legends to learn about as you watch projected stars move across the ceiling.

I think this kind of childrens planetarium has been around for many years now and has been updated in it’s look and now comes with a CD where it used to come with a cassette tape (remember those?).

“Transform your room into a 360-degree planetarium filled with stars and constellations. Includes a CD audio tour of the night sky and a hand-held meteor maker to add streaking meteors on command. Use the constellation dome outdoors as a 3D glow-in-the-dark star map. With lights, sounds and fascinating facts, it’s just like being in a real planetarium at home!
Age 8+”.

A great gift for the junior astronomer and not too expensive either, I found a similar Star Theatre which looks an improved version at The Science Museum for £29.99, or the version pictured above from The Toy Shop at £19.95

View the National Geographic Star Planetarium here.

UK Astronomy Buy & Sell

A short while ago I discovered the UK Astronomy Buy & Sell website. It was nice to find a website where you could list any astronomy item for sale for free, instead of having to pay the high listing and final auction fees of eBay.

A couple of weeks ago I listed an LX200 data cable, and some astronomy books for sale, a couple of the books sold and the communication between the buyer and myself was easy via email and the transaction was easy, payment was made through PayPal, so eBay (who own PayPal) still got some commission!

This week I have now also become a buyer from the site, as I purchased a Baader UV/IR Rejection Filter for £16.50 including delivery and it turned up in the post today, again a nice straight forward transaction.

Admittedly I do frequently look at eBay for astronomy listings, but I also regularly visit the UK Astronomy Buy & Sell Website, if you don’t know it have a look yourself, you may find a bargain!

View my astronomy listings here

Comet Holmes 17P Update

I have not been out for a couple of weeks, it seems the colder weather has put me off and I have been very busy in the evenings as well. But I managed to get outside for a couple of hours the other night after wrapping up warm. I went looking for Comet Tuttle but could not really see it or Autostar was pointing me in the wrong direction.

Anyway, I managed to have a re-visit to Comet Holmes, to see what has happened since I last looked at it about 14 days ago here. It appears that the outer dense ring has decreased or should I say thinned out.

This image was taken by my telescope mounted Canon 300mm lens.

Using a Palm with the LX200

I was amazed to find a program called Planetarium which can be installed on a Palm top with Palm OS 3.5 and above. Planetarium is a full astronomy program which can also control your telescope.

So the first thing I did was go and get my old Palm M505 out of the loft and charge it up. The Palm is something I have not used for ages as I kept finding the battery was always out of charge whenever I went to use it. Another thing is that nowadays the mobile phone can do most of things that the Palm can, but now it has a new lease of life as long as I can get it to talk to the LX200.

I then downloaded the Planetarium software and installed the extra LX200 drivers. Installation was easy, after I tried to install the latest Palm Desktop software onto my Vista PC, which was not too happy, so I ended up installing it instead onto my XP laptop which worked.

After starting Planetarium I entered the latitude and longitude co-ordinates and the date and time. Overall the software looks good, you can even set the read out to display in night mode where the screen turns red.

The next thing I need to do to is now find a Palm to RS232 Serial cable so that I can try and connect the Palm to the LX200 somehow. If anybody has any ideas on how to get the Palm to talk to the LX200 then please leave your comments.

Solar System Mobile Kit

I saw this Solar System mobile kit on the web. It’s a mobile of the solar system that comes in kit form and has to be put together.

The solar system mobile kit comes with everything you need including paints, brushes and a full colour poster.

What a great idea for a kids present though, something for them to do and educational at the same time and something for them to hang in the bedroom afterwards. A good introduction to the solar system for budding junior astronomers.

“Create the entire solar system in your own home. This fascinating kit has everything for making a beautiful, glow-in-the-dark mobile featuring all our known planets. 75cm high, 75cm wide when complete. Includes a bonus wall chart full of fascinating facts. Ideal for supporting Key Stage 3 of the National Curriculum. Age 7+”.

The Solar System mobile is available here from The Science Museum for £16.99

The Monthly Sky Guide Book Review

The Monthly Sky Guide 7th Edition by Cambridge University Press (ISBN 0521684358)

The Monthly Sky Guide contains a chapter on the main sights visible in each month of the year in the northern hemisphere.

The Monthly Sky Guide was first published in 1987 and it gets updated every few years, this 7th edition of The Monthly Sky Guide has details on planet positions and eclipses up to 2011.

At around 65 pages this book is not the largest astronomy book ever seen but it does contain a lot of useful information. The beginning of the book contains a useful introduction which answers questions such as what is a Star. What is a Constellation? How bright are the stars? etc. It also helps you to find your way around the night sky and describes how the night sky changes through the seasons.

Each month in turn provides you with a night sky map and details on key stars for the month, what the planets are up to together with any meteor showers or eclipses that are due that month. A particular constellation is then looked into in more detail, describing what to look for in that constellation.

Overall the maps are really useful and easy to read, The Monthly Sky Guide is an excellent book for anyone who wants to learn about the night sky and the constellations and know what major events are coming up in the next few years.

Monthly Sky Guide is available at Waterstones

The Sky at Night – Grand Collision

Sir Patrick Moore looks ahead to 2 billion years when the Milky Way will collide with another galaxy, Andromeda, an event which will destroy stars and planets but will eventually create new stars, solar systems and planets.

Dr Chris Lintott steps outside to look at Andromeda, easily visible in the night sky using binoculars. It is still 2.5 million light years away, but getting closer by the day.

Shown on BBC4 @ 7.30pm on Sunday 4th November 2007