Tag : imaging

Sky-watcher Quattro-150p Dual-speed Imaging Newtonian – Steel Tube by Sky-Watcher

Sky-Watcher Quattro-150P Dual-Speed Imaging Newtonian - Steel TubeSky-watcher Quattro-150p Dual-speed Imaging Newtonian – Steel Tube
The Sky-Watcher Quattro-150P Imaging Newtonian, featuring a steel tube, is a powerhouse telescope engineered for astrophotography and visual observations. This high-performance reflector boasts a generous 150 mm aperture and dual-speed rack-and-pinion focuser, ensuring precise and smooth focusing. The sturdy steel tube construction enhances stability and provides outstanding image clarity.

Price: £529.00

Buy Now from Warehouse Express

Sky-watcher Quattro-200p Dual-speed Imaging Newtonian – Steel Tube by Sky-Watcher

Sky-Watcher Quattro-200P Dual-Speed Imaging Newtonian - Steel TubeSky-watcher Quattro-200p Dual-speed Imaging Newtonian – Steel Tube
The Sky-Watcher Quattro-200P Imaging Newtonian, featuring a steel tube, is a powerhouse telescope engineered for astrophotography and visual observations. This high-performance reflector boasts a generous 200 mm aperture and dual-speed rack-and-pinion focuser, ensuring precise and smooth focusing. The sturdy steel tube construction enhances stability and provides outstanding image clarity.

Price: £639.00

Buy Now from Warehouse Express

Sky-watcher Quattro-250p Parabolic Dual-speed Imaging Newtonian Ota by Sky-Watcher

Sky-Watcher Quattro-250P Parabolic Dual-Speed Imaging Newtonian OTASky-watcher Quattro-250p Parabolic Dual-speed Imaging Newtonian Ota
Sky-Watcher Quattro-250P Parabolic Dual-Speed Imaging Newtonian Optical Tube Assembly. The new Sky-Watcher Quattro series with their fast f/4 focal ratios, have been specially designed for high quality astrophotography with short exposure times. They are of course also fine telescopes for visual observations. Their tube interiors have knife-edge ray traced baffles to ensure no light is lost, and stray light is kept out! Its paraboloidal primary mirror is made of low thermal expansion, fast-cooling Pyrex glass.

Price: £779.00

Buy Now from Warehouse Express

Sky-watcher Quattro-300p Dual-speed Imaging Newtonian – Steel Tube by Sky-Watcher

Sky-Watcher Quattro-300P Dual-Speed Imaging Newtonian - Steel TubeSky-watcher Quattro-300p Dual-speed Imaging Newtonian – Steel Tube
The Sky-Watcher Quattro-300P Imaging Newtonian, featuring a steel tube, is a powerhouse telescope engineered for astrophotography and visual observations. This high-performance reflector boasts a generous 300 mm aperture and dual-speed rack-and-pinion focuser, ensuring precise and smooth focusing. The sturdy steel tube construction enhances stability and provides outstanding image clarity.

Price: £1199.00

Buy Now from Warehouse Express

Imaging and Image Processing with a High Frame Rate Camera

Imaging and Image Processing with a High Frame Rate CameraMick and I talked at the Cambridge Astronomical Association about Webcam Imaging or really nowadays High Frame Rate Camera Imaging on Wednesday 21st June 2017.

The talk covers a brief history of webcams and high frame rate cameras, it then covers setting up your camera and using camera filters as well as looking at Field of View (FOV).

We look at using camera software for capturing the images, including  Sharpcap and Fire Capture. We also looked at Registax 6 and Autostakkert for processing and the usual Photoshop and Microsoft Image Composite Editor (ICE) for making lunar mosaics.

Included in the PDF are some of Mick’s best solar, lunar and planetary images.

Dowlonad the PDF version of the talk here – Imaging and Image Processing with a High Frame Rate Camera

What to Image in October

This is an imaging list for myself to follow. The reason it does not include all objects may be due to my surrounding garden views or that some distant objects are just too small for my telescopes.

M31 Andromeda Galaxy
M52 M52 and Bubble Nebula
IC5146 Cocoon Nebula
NGC7317 Stephan’s Quintet
IC1396 Elephants Trunk

What to Image in September

This is an imaging list for myself to follow. The reason it does not include all objects may be due to my surrounding garden views or that some distant objects are just too small for my telescopes.

NGC6888 Crescent Nebula
NGC6946 Firework Galaxy
NGC6960 Witches Broom
NGC6992 Network Nebula (Eastern Loop)
NGC7000 North American Nebula
IC5070 Pelican Nebula
IC5146 Cocoon Nebula
NGC7023 Iris Nebula
M2 Globular Cluster
M15 Globular Cluster
M27 Dumbbell Nebula
IC1396 Elephants Trunk

Ian King Advanced Imaging Day

On Saturday 13th November I headed on over to a small village outside of Rugby to attend an Advanced CCD Imaging Course run by Ian King. I did not know what to expect when it came to the venue, all I knew was that it was in a village hall. Well usually village halls conjure up visions of a dark, old and very cold hall where the local scout troop meets up. But I was very pleasantly surprised to find a 3 year old village hall with all the latest mod cons.

Advanced Imaging DayThe day began at 10.30am with a short introduction about what was happening in the course and then we went straight into learning about monochrome imaging with John Evans.

After a short tea break, John Evans then talked more about how he processed his monochrome images and the equipment that he uses. John was actually buying Hasselblad lenses from eBay and attaching them to QSI CCD cameras in order to take wide field images with Hydrogen Alpha filters.

Ian King then gave a talk on the latest active and alternative optics and how amateur astronomers can use them. Lunch followed the talk – which was included in the price of £35 per head for the day.
Ian then gave another talk on motorized focusers. It covered all the various models that can be purchased and what telescopes the motorized focusers fit. He also gave use a live motorized focuser demonstration by using Focus Max in Maxim DL which was connected to refractor with a motorized focuser which was pointing at an artificial star.

Advanced Astro Imaging DayNik Szymanek then took over and gave us two 1 hour lectures. His first talk included a discussion of RGB and LRGB imaging and processing and how he uses FITS Liberator. Nik took us all the way through his image processing regime, which was very insightful and really opened up for us the kind of ‘black box’ of imaging techniques the top astro photographers in their field use.

Nik’s second talk included more about processing narrowband imaging. This included processing Ha, OIII and SII images, as well as the Hubble palette and Bi-Colour image processing. He also covered the usage of the program Neat Image and other noise control programs and methods in image processing.

John Evans closed the day at 5.30pm with a short talk practices best avoided, how to progress your imaging and he also took questions from the group.

The day ran from 10.30am until 5.30pm, included lunch and all tea and coffees etc. and all for just £35 per head. We thought it was amazingly good value as we both learnt so much during the day about image processing.

Ian King runs these CCD imaging courses every now and again, and it is worth checking his website for more information. He also runs a beginners imaging day, and that is something I have now also booked.