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APWA Test night

Filed Under: APWA, Astrophotos by Brendan — Leave a comment
May 20, 2012

Well the new moon was about and for those who couldn’t get away for the weekend a “test N tune” was held at my house. It was good to see Allan come along with a set up close to my heart. :) It brought back many memories of the past!

Paul was also there with his GSO RC10 doing a bit of testing of his AO system. Unfortunately we didn’t get it operational with a suspect being that the SSAG is not sensitive enough to pick up faint stars at F8. Next time hopefully that issue can be sorted.

I had the 254 already set up from previous nights imaging, however due to helping out with teaching and the like and the dreaded palm trees killing me I only had limited data. I have attacked a few different targets trying to get a feel for my back yard and what it has to offer! I am pleased to say that it has a lot to offer due to the fact that 10min RGB is possible without detrimental light pollution.

I took a photo of an easy target but what I call my timeline images, that is images that once a year I take as a map of my progress though imaging. For now though I will post the result of Saturday nights efforts.

Normal setup, LRGB 180:20:10:20 (yes only 2 images ea for R and B and 1 for G) camera was operating at -30 deg C

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New Resource

Filed Under: Equipment by Brendan — Leave a comment
May 4, 2012

Its a how to convert your newtonian into a imaging beast! Jump into my resources page and down the bottom I have written a small document regarding the short falls of newts and how to get around them. It is a little bit of a rolling document that I will add more photos and the like to.

Please if you have any comments on how it might be improved let me know. If there is something that you would like me to put into it let me know :)

Brendan

 

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Under the stars tonight

Filed Under: Astrophotos by Brendan — 2 Comments
May 1, 2012

Well its just lovely to be able to leave work early for once, get home and set up the scope. I had hopes of hitting Thor’s helmet but that proved to be useless as it transited at 5pm…. no good! Then I thought about doing a bit of the Vela SNR but alass the palm tree defeated me on that one! So off I went to the Chook spinning off 900 second shots at-30deg C tracking nicely within +-0.5 pixels and good seeing.

here is a screen cap of the imaging PC the image has been inverted to better see the structure

Update: 2 hrs 30 min 9*900 Ha Darks subtracted combined in CCD stack2 and processed PSCS5
Lambda Centurai region commonly known as the Running Chicken (need the whole FOV to see it)

Whispy Chicken feathers

 Update; 1hr 30 min 6*900 Ha Darks subtracted combined in CCD Stack 2 and processed in PSCS5
Barnard 302 Just under Messier 8 Lagoon Nebula and hence I’m call thing this

The forgotten Pond

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New to BM.net. Telescope mount servicing

Filed Under: General by Brendan — Leave a comment
April 25, 2012

Well after many years of working with EQ6 mounts, I can confidently offer a service to all in regards to stripping down and servicing these mounts.! The knowledge I have applies to all Synta GEM’s and by in large Takahashi and Vixen mounts too.

So if you would like to take advantage of my personal expertise in these types of mounts please visit the new page

Mount Servicing

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Williams Optics Megrez 90 Testing

Filed Under: General by Brendan — Leave a comment
April 24, 2012

In the lead up to Grahame and I’s trip to Karajini National park in July I am going though and testing my equipment, getting everything running smoothly and cutting down on anything that I don’t need.

This included finally getting the M90 operational in a photographic situation. My main issues with the M90 have been Guiding and Field flattening. So Sunday night it was all about the guiding for a start.

Focusing the OAG to the QHY9 was a doddle and I had it almost nailed without having to move anything (makes a difference when you have experience with OAG’s). As for the flattening I had the MPCC sitting on the front which really didn’t cut the cheese. But to break the night as everything was in a flux of testing i had the trusty 14 dollar drill to punch some holes in a dovetail, unfortunately I was 1.2 mm out over 80mm which I have found sends poor Alignmasters head off the richter scale :( So I couldn’t do any long exposure tests.

So my ports of call are
Fix dovetail
Test a Pflat 4 to do the flattening

Once thats done Then I will be able to go and have a crack at some long exposures

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APWA and Astrofest 2012

Filed Under: Astrophotos, Deep sky trips, Equipment, General by Brendan — Leave a comment
April 1, 2012

Well Astrofest 2012 has now passed us and what a ride that was!

Our stall was small, with a very plain looking banner compared to all the fluoro busy banners that surrounded us. I think the thing that caught peoples eye the most was a real working astrophotography setup not hidden in the dark but out for all to see! Though the thing I was most impressed by was the response that we noted from the organisers right though to the people who visited us as there seems to be a massive hole of information and a general resource that aspiring astrophotographers can go!

Once again everybody who attended our modest stall

Thank you so much for making it what it was and from Grahame, Daniel and myself we hope to see a lot more of APWA and all that it has to offer

Brendan Mitchell

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Finally got back out under the skies

Filed Under: General by Brendan — 1 Comment
March 24, 2012

Well after a long absence due to Christmas holidays, Work and absolutely woeful seeing/weather. This new moon everything came together. So I jumped in the trusty wagon, and spent Thursday and Friday night out in the wilderness. Unfortunately on Thursday night the cloud cover came in at about 11pm which put paid to that idea. Friday night wasn’t much better with thin high level cloud plaguing the night and low level cloud skirting around.

Saturday night was a wash out due to the remnant of a cyclone that pounded into Karratha earlier in the month.

So here is what i captured

NGC 3372 – Eta Carina  2.5hrs
NGC 2070 – Tarantula Nebula 1.5 hrs
M 104 – Sombrero Galaxy 1.5hrs

These have been taken with the new FLI research grade LRGB filter set that I purchased late last year other than that everything else is still the same.

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Hydrogen Alpha fun

Filed Under: Astrophotos by Brendan — Leave a comment
December 2, 2011

here is a bit of a quick thursday night snag, with some wind around and stars twinkling at zenith I took some images of the tarantula nebula.

4 x 600 though the Ha 12nm narroband filter

No calibration just a bit of photoshop for levels and curves

 

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Saturday night.

Filed Under: Astrophotos, Processing by Brendan — Leave a comment
November 20, 2011

Well it was windy as buggery with the Freo doctor rolling in though Secret harbor the skies where free of clouds which was not the norm of late but very welcome by Dan, Grahame and myself.

I set up nice and early, and polar aligned the scope while the sky was still aglow with the last parts of the day and within 20 minutes of astronomical darkness i was lined up on NGC 55 Click 740pm! 15min L 10 min RGB.

About midnight i flipped the mount over to The horse head nebula refocused and let her go. unfortunately the Blue screen of doom hit in as per usual but i had taken a sneeaky nap… ah well got 3 x 15min L 2 x 10min RGB

For the first time in a long time I also took flats which improved my images to no end, but my poor NGC55 was light pollution damaged So without further adoo

Normal kit 254, OAG, Sbig, QHY LRGB 45:20:20:20 L @ bin 1×1 RGB bin 2×2, SQM reading 20.1

I did take more data on this but it just wasn’t the same quality so I have left it out for now 24th

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Equipment Information

Filed Under: Equipment, General by Brendan — Leave a comment
November 20, 2011

Hey all just thought that I would blog a few screen captures of the proformance of my OAG guiding and what I generally guide on. So here it is.

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