9 Sep 2009 - Rise: 20:30, Set: 12:54
10 Sep 2009 – Rise: 20:58, Set: 14:19
11 Sep 2009 – Rise: 21:42, Set: 15:36
12 Sep 2009 – Rise: 22:47, Set: 16:38
13 Sep 2009 – Rise: ?, Set: 08:11
14 Sep 2009 – Rise: 00:10, Set: 17:49
15 Sep 2009 – Rise: 01:44, Set: 18:09
Archive for September, 2009
One of my moon pictures is on the Celestron site under “images” – http://www.celestron.com/c3/product.php?ProdID=41 (I’m “carolastro”!)
The camera arrived safe and sound yesterday and I *love* it! Today the Celestron 1.25″ t-adapter arrived but still no sign of the t-ring (the t-ring and t-adapter are needed to use the camera with the telescope for prime focus photography). The t-ring was ordered on Sunday and was marked as “in stock” (and still is) on the Telescope Planet website and the delivery shows as “free next day delivery”. Therefore, I’d have expected it to go in the post on Monday and to arrive on Tuesday. Here we are at Wednesday and still no sign of it. I tried calling them earlier, but got fed up listening to their “on hold” music and gave up after 5 mins or so. Emailed them at 12.45pm today to ask if the order had been posted and haven’t had a reply.
It’s a shame really – they have a great stock, competitive prices and were helpful when I placed my first order by phone. But since then it’s been a bit hit and miss – twice I was told that my solar filter had been posted when it wasn’t even in stock. And twice I’ve sent them emails which they haven’t replied to. We’ll see if it comes in tomorrow’s post, otherwise I’ll be back on the phone to them again.
My solar filter has finally arrived and it looks perfect! Now all I need is some sunshine 
I’m expecting the camera to be delivered later today, so it’s an exciting day for parcels!
I just came across the Ultimate Astrophotography Challenge and … WOW! There’s a list of 109 objects to “acquire” including deep space, lunar, planetary and earth-related objects.
I think it’s a brilliant idea and while I’m so new to this that I’m only just getting to grips with imaging the moon, I’m setting myself the challenge of collecting all 109 of these objects.
I’m supposed to be saving up for a Canon 300D and I’m only about 20% of the way there …. but I saw one on Ebay that was a good buy (included the lens, waterproof bag, manual, battery, charger, 4GB card etc.) so I went for it! Also ordered the t-adapter and t-ring to match. Feel slightly sick at the thought of spending all that money, but I think it’ll be a good investment both for astrophotography and for the digital photography course I start next month! Will keep telling myself that anyway 
After last night’s plantary imaging failure, I decided to look for some tips & tricks for NexImage and came across Quick Guide to Capturing Images with the Celestron NexImage Solar System Imager by Mike Swanson.
After reading it, this is my plan of action for the next clear night when I attempt to capture anything other than the moon:
- Change the frame rate to 5fps
- Set white balance to auto
- Set gain to minimum
- Set gamma to minimum
- Set brightness and saturation to middle
- Set shutter speed to slightly darker than I’d like (I usually do this bit anyway)
- Change output size to 320 x 240 (currently set to 640 x 480 so this will hopefully make a difference)
- Change the frame rate to 20-30fps for focus, then back to 5fps for capture
Those are the instructions in the PDF linked to above, so we’ll see how it goes. Now all I need is another clear night…
I sent off my enrolment forms the other day for two short courses with the Open University: Digital Photography & Introducing Astronomy. The photography course starts next month and the Astronomy course starts in November, so they’ll overlap (both 10 weeks). I’m really excited about it and think the two courses will complement each other nicely!
The skies stayed fairly clear, so I managed to get this picture tonight:
And here’s the video:
We think we also saw Jupiter last night but struggled to get a good clear view of it (and couldn’t get anything more than a fuzzy blob in NexImage). Not sure why that was, as I believe the NexImage is quite capable of capturing Jupiter. Maybe the “seeing” wasn’t good enough last night?
The skies are partly clear at the moment so I’m crossing my fingers that I might be able to get the telescope out tonight, after so many nights of constant rain!
