Star gazing

I don't owe the Bank anything, Gail, as they've never really been anything to me other than be some where to hold my money, and in the very early years send me a letter, while I was out in Aden, telling me that I owed them 1 shilling and six pence and that I had to pay it back asap......it cost more to send the letter!
Again, in the early years of having a Wife, family and mortgage combined with a low wage had the Bank sending me letters costing me £25 telling me I had gone a couple of pounds over my overdraft [I already knew that!], which to my mind was kicking a man when he was down. The £25 pound "fine" was always more than the amount past the overdraft so, when I formally retired, all my monies and pensions went into investments and assets and not into the Bank.........so I'm in no danger of starving. And the Bank and Bank Manager have never been consulted in any of my big buys or when buying all the Astronomy equipment, 5 Telescopes, and Observatory.

Clear skies are forecast for tomorrow night

 

Yep, I hope so, Martin. Last year was lousy for Planet viewing and imaging as they were so low on the horizon or were rising in the early daylight.

 

I want to take some more Moon shots tomorrow night so it looks like a late night as it's going to be gone 1am before it shows in the South East. So I have a few shots at the Orion Nebula and associated stars and nebula around.

 

The final set up, Martin, was done more out of logic and long, frustrating, experimenting as there's no real advice about setting up the ZWO camera onto the scope with the correct focal separation between the scope and the sensor of the camera, due to the different types of scopes, aperture sizes and focal lengths. Once the two filters were fitted to the back of the scope it was a case of finding which combination of different sizes of extension rings fitted between the Reducer and the camera would work So I was having to use the rare clear nights to fit a combination and then try to see if the scope would focus or even get near to focusing. So there were quite a few nights when nothing worked, but I guess just blind stubborness, basic optimism, trying to narrow the combination down, and sheer luck, despite the constant cloudy nights making me wait until I could try again, got me there. But getting that adrenaline surge of satisfaction when I finally cracked it made it worthwhile!!
The Broadband filter is used to reduced light pollution while the Nebula/Narrow Band filter is used to pick out the details of the Nebula Cloud, but probably only the Broadband Filter, which can come in 1.25 inch size, is necessary for bettering visual viewing or normal imaging. Adding the Reducer was necessary as otherwise, despite the 12 inch aperture, I could only see/image the width of a drinking straw. The Reducer opening up the viewing field to slightly less than the width of my small finger nail.
I use Binoculars to find targets on some nights when the "seeing" is not good despite clear skies.......that's usually when the Stars are twinkling at a high rate showing that the Atmosphere is turbulent.

 

It certainly is, Martin, and technology like it will probably turn up in amateur astronomy gear in the coming years. The camera sensor will be very sensitive but I reckon that new CCD cameras will be even more sensitive in the next couple of years.

The Moon shots, these were taken on Saturday night/Sunday morning, I put up are, to me, a little frustrating as they're not as sharp as they should be and are a little "soft". It's got nothing to do with the Telescope or the Camera but with the atmosphere being turbulent even though the skies were clear. One of the problems being that with a reasonable magnification the turbulence shows up even more and softens the image. I'm still taking only single images and I will have to get a move on and start taking multiple images of, say, 20 or 50 at a time and then stacking them to get a better, sharper, image......or at least that's the theory. The other simpler method is is take multiple images in one image string and go through every one to pick the sharpest in the hope the turbulence lessened in one or two of them.

 

Some more images of the Orion Nebula taken on Saturday night...........