Day 30 Cloudy in Spain, NGC 6416 imaged using T9 with a V Filter in Siding Spring

The day started well - as I type some clouds have appeared and the sun is behind them! It developed into a fairly poor day with gusty winds - not looking good for observing. I think it is due to improve over the next few days.

No clear skies here so I used telescope T9 in New South Wales to image a couple of open clusters that are part of a project I am working on. The first cluster was NGC 6416.

This image is taken with  a V Photometric Filter as my project is about the photometry of open clusters.

The next image is a negative of NGC 6416

 So North is up and East is to the left. The scale is shown by the 1 arc minute line at lower left.

The table below gives the field of view of the image and the plate scales

So it is quite a small field of view.

I chose this telescope to image this object as the catalogue size of the object is 15' X 15' - so a fairly tight fit.

Note that the date given on the image is tomorrow the 13th March as Siding Spring is ahead of us  but the time given is Universal Time. So it was 5.11 p.m. in the UK, 6.11 p.m. in Spain but in Siding Spring it was 4.11 a.m. the next morning.

I did a plate solution in SkyX as shown below

I set the plate scale at 0.8 arceconds per pixel so the SkyX could work out the precise scale of the map to compare the image with to be able to get a solution and an agreement on 103 of the stars in the image.

The next stage was to look at the area of the image superimposed on the SKyX chart.

 I have clicked on a star on the chart and used the Tycho catalogue designation and information.

The Tycho catalogue includes photometric magnitudes for the stars in B and V. The V magnitude for the star is given as 8.83 so I now have a reference magnitude for a comparison star. By identifying a few more for comparison and check stars in the same way I can determine the V magnitude for all of the stars in the cluster from the image using VPhot. To be continued.........

Day 29 Clouds in New Mexico, Sierra Nevada and Spain. The Sky this Week from Sky and Telescope Video.

This is what it is like in New Mexico at the moment

and in Sierra Nevada USA at the moment

and where I am in Cabrera in Spain a few moments later - not much better - I hope it improves by the time it gets dark!

 This week's Sky and Telescope video talks about the morning sky. It refers to daylight saving time changing this week but in Spain - and the UK -  the clocks don't change until March 30th. Most  US states changed on Sunday 9th March - with exceptions such as Arizona and Hawaii and others.

THIS WEEK

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 Last week's video talked about Jupiter

LAST WEEK

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The weather deteriorated into the evening - I had to give up any thought of observing.

Day 28 Improved Pointing and Tracking, M51 with the Canon 40D and 4 inch refractor.

Following the alignment of the CGEM last night I checked the pointing and tracking of the mount which had improved considerably. I imaged M51 (single 90 second image) using the SBIG ST9XE CCD camera and the 4" Meade Refractor with the following result.

This is the FITS data about the above image

I managed to get to Telescope T11 in New Mexico today to image (300 second exposure) the same object for comparison purposes.

 My image was not too bad for a 0.1m telescope when you consider that I just took the  second image with this 0.5m telescope in New Mexico.

Day 27 Astrophotography Tool, The Moon with the Canon 40D and Step by Step Instructions for All Star Polar Alignment

I used the new setup today. I looked at the Moon first of all at 1816 UT. This is via the Canon 40D on the ETX90 viewed in APT.

and again at 1819 UT - showing how I have selected the Moon on the NexRemote virtual handset

and again at 1915 UT. The log shows the exposures I have taken at 1/100th of a second ISO 200 at around 20 degrees C.

I am finding it difficult to align the ETX and the 4" refractor as I only have a camera mount for the ETX which I need to "shim" to get approximate alignment.

I went through the process of 2 star alignment on the CGEM with 4 additional calibration stars and then went through the process of polar alignment using the all star alignment method.

ALL STAR ALIGMENT PROCESS

1. I pressed the UNDO button on the handset (the actual handset not the NexRemote virtual handset - you need to be at the telescope for all of this!) I was then back at the "CGEM READY" display.

2. I then pressed the LIST button and used the down button to get to the NAMED STARS option. You must choose a star that is high in the South near the meridian so I chose PROCYON and pressed ENTER.

3. The CGEM slewed to Procyon.

4. I then pressed the ALIGN button on the handset and then the down button to get to POLAR ALIGN. I then pressed the down button to get to ALIGN MOUNT and pressed ENTER.

5. I centred Procyon in the finder and eyepiece as advised by the handset using the buttons on the handset pressing ENTER and ALIGN as usual.

6. I then pressed ENTER again to start the actual alignment. The telescope slewed again - this time pointing to where it thought Procyon should be if the telescope was properly aligned. Of course Procyon was no longer in the eyepiece.

7. I then adjusted the ALTITUDE and AZIMUTH knobs on the mount until I once more had Procyon in the eyepiece.

8. I then pressed ENTER and the handset responded with ALIGNMENT COMPLETE.

At that point the polar axis should be pointing at the North Celestial Pole.

Day 26 Telescope 2 Setup and the Telrad

I decided to utilise the SBIG ST9XE on the 4" refractor as it was not a combination I had tried before. The setup is now like this.

The camera was attached with the 0.8X focal reducer in place so there should be a fairly wide field of view.

I managed to reduce down to a single USB cable as I had managed to get the USB hub working as normal. There are four devices now controlled through the single USB cable - the CGEM, the Canon 40D, the SBIG camera and the filter wheel. I could also have added the electronic focuser but did not have an adaptor to attach the focuser to the 2" telescope fitting. So I am using CCDSoft to control the camera and the filter wheel, APT - Astrophotography Tool to control the Canon 40D and NexRemote to control the telescope or the Sky6 if appropriate. I used the Sky6 in the past to slew the CGEM through a list of galaxies which were imaged automatically.(When I had a 12" Meade on the CGEM a couple of years ago).

The Telrad proves extremely useful - this is what it looks like

This is a view of the Moon sighting through the Telrad

 The Telrad is structured as shown below.

CGEM All Star Alignment video and fitting a polar finderscope.

I plan to try the All Star Alignment on the CGEM when I can - this video describes it. Note that this is the later CGEM DX model that is a little beefier than mine. It also shows the more sensible knobs fitted to attach the OTA that you can actually turn.

Another You Tube video about the CGEM DX is this one about balancing.

This video shows how to fit a polar finder to the CGEM(original)

The day turned cloudy and did not clear until late so I was not prepared for observing - tomorrow night hopefully I will try the all star align.

Jupiter, the Moon and SN2014J

Sunny with a bit of a chill in the wind but fine nevertheless.

A clear evening - I tried to improve polar alignment by centreing Polaris through the sighting hole in the polar axis - relying on a 6 star alignment of the CGEM.

Jupiter was the first target. This is Jupiter seen on the APT screen with its 4 moons. A 10 second exposure at 1600 ISO.

The moons of Jupiter are identified in the image below.

THe Moon was imaged - this is it displayed in APT

In a 30 second image through the ETX 90 I could just see supernova SN 2014J

This is the supernova through my C14 on 23rd January 2014

Day 23 Resetting COM ports in Windows to eliminate Telescope and Camera USB connection problems

Yet another fine start to the day. I switched on the telescope to continue my image capture refinement but could not connect Nexremote to the CGEM. I got "internal error". Of course the next thing I did was to search the web for "Nexremote Internal Error" and there was a host of discussions on it from people with the same problem. I could not find an answer there as these discussions tend to diverge in all directions before giving an answer! I knew it has something to do with port settings - always had been a problem in the past with other telescopes - so instead I searched for "re-setting ports" and came across this video on You Tube at the top of the list.(Windows 7 on my PC controlling the telescope by coincidence)

Here is the video - I followed it precisely and rebooted my machine - Nexremote worked immediately. All the clutter of "Ports in Use" gone!

In the evening clouds moved in and blotted out the sky. I had abandoned hope of observing but later in the evening it did get partially clear with the crescent Moon over the arch. I decided to give observing a miss as I had been out at the telescope last night until 3.30 a.m.

Day 22 Cassiopeia and Tycho

At 6 a.m. I imaged Cassiopeia over La Pilica using my Sony Alpha 350 DSLR. The image was taken on a tripod for 22s. (Manual - finger on button!) The data is shown below.

From the image I produced a star chart of Cassiopeia by converting to monochrome and then obtaining the negative.

Tyoho spotted a supernova in 1572 in Cassiopeia - here is his sketch

and his comments:

On the 11th day of November in the evening after sunset, I was contemplating the stars in a clear sky. I noticed that a new and unusual star, surpassing the other stars in brilliancy, was shining almost directly above my head; and since I had, from boyhood, known all the stars of the heavens perfectly, it was quite evident to me that there had never been any star in that place of the sky, even the smallest, to say nothing of a star so conspicuous and bright as this. I was so astonished of this sight that I was not ashamed to doubt the trustworthyness of my own eyes. But when I observed that others, on having the place pointed out to them, could see that there was really a star there, I had no further doubts. A miracle indeed, one that has never been prevoiously seen before our time, in any age since the beginning of the world.

Day 21 Visited Bedar and The Solar Explorer and Imaging through the ETX90 with the Canon 40D

I spent much of the day with friends Andy Devey and his wife Judy. Andy is known as "The Solar Explorer" and is a well regarded solar observer. His web site is here. I think he is going to do very exciting things for solar astronomy now that he is established in Spain. He is doing a lot of outreach and is now delivering talks and writing articles in Spanish.

It was a warm sunny day that went off a little later in the afternoon but then recovered and I was able to do some imaging later in the evening.

I am trying to refine a technique for imaging using the CGEM and associated software. Initially I set up the system to image using the handset and the Sky6 software. This worked fine but I had problems in making minor adjustments to the telescope position using Sky6. I set up NexRemote that I had tried previously which replicates the handset on the computer screen.This is it being used with APT at the same time.

 Once you get the CGEM ready message - you are ready to go!

You can set Nexremote to be always on top of APT. These are the settings that I used on Nexremote to connect to the CGEM. When I click OK it connects and acts as though it was the actual handset on the CGEM. You need to go through the process of setting or confirming the time and zone etc (It does remember these for next time) and enter the alignment process. I went through the alignment process with two stars and then two more. Using APT at the same time you can look at the Live View to check if your alignment stars are in the field of view - setting the brightness to 200%. At first the Live View screen was blank - I was way off - not surprising because at this stage I have only used a compass to set the azimuth and set the altitude from the CGEM scale! The process I used with the ETX and Canon combination was to slew to the first alignment star using Nexremote from inside the house, go out and check the pointing on the Telrad finder - way off - and use the real handset to centre the star on its cross hairs - you can adjust the cross hair brightness on the Telrad depending upon how bright your star is - it is easy to lose the star by having the brightness turned up too much! Having done that I went to the ETX Finder and centred the star in that (I had of course aligned the Telrad , ETX Finder and ETX Main scope previously). The advantage of the ETX is that it has a flip mirror arrangement that allowed me to have an eyepiece that can view exactly what the camera will see by flipping the flat knob on the side of the telescope. I turned the knob and centred the star in the 32mm eyepiece (Focal Length of the ETX is 1250mm - you can do the maths to work out the magnification) When I went back inside to the APT Live View - there was the star in field of view - it had to be there because I could see it through the flip mirror eyepiece on the ETX! The only problem will be if it is too faint a star to be seen by Live VIew. I adjusted the position of the star using the cross hairs option and the Nexremote slow motion controls - I found a setting of 4 worked well. The centred star is shown below.

 

I then told Nexremote that the star was aligned in the finder and the eyepiece - exactly as you would do on the actual handset and selected another star and repeated the process. By the time I had aligned on two stars and slewed to a third calibration star it was appearing directly on the APT Live View screen so the process became entirely remote for centring and telling the CGEM it was aligned.