IC 434 Horsehead Nebula LRGB image through my 8-inch RC with ZWO 1600 Mono Camera

LRGB 5 x 60s exposures per filter. Aligned and combined in Nebulosity. Processed in Photoshop CC

The Moon

The Moon - a 1/1000 second image taken using my ZWO 1600 and 8 -inch Ritchey Chretien scope.

Museum of the Moon

On Tuesday 19th February this year I visited the Harris Museum in Preston to see the ‘Museum of the Moon” It is based around a 7 metre diameter giant Moon that was suspended from the ceiling in the Harris Museum which is an Art Gallery and Library in central Preston.

Comet C/2018 Y1 Iwamoto

The animation shows the rapid movement of the comet on Sunday morning 10th February 2019 over a period of 2h 20m.

The image below identifies two of the brighter stars

Minor Planet HEBE predicted position on march 18th 2019 and image from 9th february 2019

Hebe is currently in the constellation of Orion. This wil be its position on 18th March as it approaches the constellation of Gemini.

I took an image from Spain using my 8-inch Ritchey-Chretien Telescope and ZWO 1600 Mono Camera on the 9th February when Hebe  was here:

This is the image: LRGB Image of Hebe 2 X 30s RGB 4 X 30s Luminance from Almeria in southern Spain.

 

The chart below shows its movement in April 2019

Amateur Night Sky - Week starting February 4th 2019

McNeil's Nebula Disappears

Where has it gone?

Back in Spain - PrimaLuce - Side by Side Mounting and thoughts on the pointing accuracy of the MYT.

I am back in Spain for a few weeks and reorganising my equipment in the observatory. The run off roof observatory I bought in Spain has proved to be excellent and has the advantage that it could be easily dismantled and relocated if I wished to do so as the roof and walls can be simply unscrewed. 

During my day on the stand for the Society for the History of Astronomy at the International Astronomy Show at Stoneleigh Park in Kenilworth near Coventry earlier this month I visited the stand of 365 Astronomy who are the main distributors for PrimaLuce Lab who are based in Northern Italy. I was interested in side by side telescope mounting for my 8-inch RC, my 80mm Skywatcher refractor with a ZWO Colour camera for guiding and planetary imaging , my modified Canon 40D attached to the OTA of my Meade ETX 90 and my un-modified Canon 40D with 50mm and 300mm Canon lenses - all to be mounted on my Paramount MyT. On the 365 stand I spoke to Filippo Bradaschia, the CEO of Primaluce who demonstrated their PLUS system Dovetail Bars and Clamps. I particularly liked the clamps that could take either Losmandy or Vixen Dovetails. to cut a long story short I flew back to Spain with a 49.5cm Primaluce Losmandy Bar, a large and a small clamp in my hand luggage. The large Losmandy Bar, fitting diagonally in my regulation size hand luggage caused some consternation at Manchester Airport Security. I could see no reason on the website security guidance not to take it but it took 3 people to finally agree to let me take it on board. A very difficult job for them. In future I will send any similar items by post. Primaluce has a number of  videos on their equipment presented by Filippo - this is the one about Dovetails and Clamps. Also this video. These are the items I bought.

This morning's imaging of Comet 21P Giacobini-Zinner

This morning I opened the observatory from my desk inside the house just before 6 a.m. Not having to go and set up the telescope and observatory makes it very easy to do some astronomy at unsocial hours. I usually wake up in the middle of the night to check the sky and if it is clear open the 'shed' and start up the telescope, set the filter wheel position, connect the camera and slew the telescope to an interesting target - all without having to move more than 3 feet from my bed!

This morning I captured the latest position of the comet 21P Giacobini-Zinner. I produced a gif animation in Photoshop to show its movement over 33 minutes.(05:57 local time to 06:30 local time.) There were intervening clouds from time to time resulting in various levels of star bloating!

Day 7 of the new observatory

I have finally completed the roll off roof observatory, installed my telescope and camera and completed the wiring to inside the house. From my desk I can open and close the roof, watching it happen with the RING security camera in the observatory - and check the movement of the telescope. I can startup and home the scope and startup the camera, set the filter wheel position and switch a light on if necessary - all from my desk. I have not yet installed my focuser because I need an adaptor for my 8-inch RC. Of course since completion every day here s very warm and sunny with clear skies but s soon as it gets dark the clouds roll in!