My Astronomical 2010

jgs001

jgs001

Brian Cox
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John
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Not a good year for Astro Photography, the weather has been rubbish... still...

A Mosaic is like a panorama, but instead of each section being made up of a single frame, each pane is an image taken from the best 20% of frames from an AVI, shot with a high frame rate camera.

I managed to win the Photo of the Month in the Sky at Night with this moon image a 65 pane mosaic

lmos2801.jpg


I was also shortlisted for the Astro Photographer of the year, for this 25 pane moon mosaic


25 Pane Mosaic - 24 May

and a great deal of fun operating at utterly silly focal lengths, 3000mm (f/37.5)

aristarchus.jpg


I also got my best shot of Jupiter with the GRS showing at the same focal length, this is a combined image of 800 of 1900 frames from a mono camera, 200 of 800 frames from a colour camera, combined with the mono as a luminance layer to preserve detail.

jupitercombonormal.jpg


A couple of widefields with the Nifty Fifty

I'm sure you'll recognise Orion, which was chosen for a gallery by an astronomer on flickr. This is 30 x 5 minute exposures.
orion-1.jpg


But perhaps not Auriga (the Charioteer) This is 20 x 5 minute exposures
auriga-25x5iso800.jpg


Here's to better weather in 2011 and a chance to get more of this done.
 
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jgs001 said:
I managed to win the Photo of the Month in the Sky at Night with this moon image a 65 pane mosaic
Click to expand...

Stunning as always John (y)
And congrats :clap:
 
Nice shots :)

I've been considering taking a moon shot every day then stacking them so you can see the edge shadow detail in every shot.

it'd look odd and take some work, but it really would be great for seeing the entire texture of its surface, but our weather is pants!
 
Thanks all. I've updated the first post with some additional info. a Mosaic is like a panorama, only a lot more work.

Harvey, I've been meaning to try something similar, but I still don't have a full cycles worth after a year or so of collecting... pain that the weather is.
 
Dont know if anyone's interested But theres a program on BBC 2 Stargazing tonight at 8PM, hope you get some more fine shots over the next few nights John (y)
 
Fantastic detail in all of these. Which program did you use to put the mosaic together?
 
John, I've been wowed by your astro-stuff this year - and it's amazing to see your pick of the bunch all in one thread :clap: :clap: :clap:

As usual, a lot of the technical details have gone straight over my head but the end results are beautiful. I think it's the first time viewing the Jupiter shot for me and that one is absolutely amazing. I'm stunned that you've been able to capture that amount of detail !!!!

p.s. Congratulations on the photo of the month and shortlisting for astro tog of the year. Seriously well deserved.
 
Lovely stuff John, congrats!

My interest in this has increased hugely over the past year - was on SG forum the other day and definitely a HEQ5 is on the shopping list! :)

drew
 
You know I'm a huge fan of your Astro stuff John.
And now I'm sure people can understand why!!

Incredible stuff. Watching you progress has been a real pleasure mate :clap:
 
Thanks very much all.

Dougie, I used iMerge to mosaic these. It's fully manual but works very well and easily. MS ICE works, but I don't have the same success rate with it, not sure it likes the shapes for the moon as much. I normally try ICE first now, as it's automated and use iMerge when ICE fails.

Sarah, I was stunned I got that much detail, totally unexpected given I'm using an 80mm refractor, the theory goes you need a large aperture to capture the details as this gives greater resolution, ok a large aperture would have done much better but...

Nice one Drew, it's a beefy mount and does me nicely.
 
They are impressive. I love jupiter, doesnt look real (I know it is)
The moon shots are awesome, thanks for sharing. If you could just PS a little green man in one of the craters I think it would add aolot to the image :)
 
Amazing pictures. Never get bored of seeing the moon or anything to do with astrophotography.

You can almost feel the texture on the moon shots! Incredible.
 
Stunning shots. I would love to have a go at this but too many other bits to buy first.
One day maybe.
 
Hiya John,

A star set you have here :) well done!

I always look forward to seeing your photos and can't wait to see what others you come up with this year.

I especially like the Orion photo, I could quite easily get lost in the photo just looking at it.

They are all amazing photos (y)

Thanks for all the help, tips and advice you have given me during the last year. I hope to have my setup organised soon.

Cheers

Dawn :)
 
Spectacular set - inspires me to get back behind the 'scope - however I haven't seen a single clear sky since november.

Jupiter is great, so to the orion capture.
 
Thanks all.

Adam, I could, but the scale would be all wrong... I doubt I can resolve below about 1 mile... the hubble can only resolve down to about 200m... (actually, it's 295feet, http://www.rocketroberts.com/astro/flag_on_moon.htm)

Dawn, good luck, I'll try and get that tape out to you this week...

Michael and Paul, come on guys get the scopes out, if it ever clears... I know what you mean Paul, really frustrating...
 
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absolutely unbelievable photos! just the thought of being able to see Jupiter in that detail with such a small telescope! well I dont have the first idea about telescopes, but an 80mm diameter lens seems tiny, and yet you can see so much.
 
Thanks BrightSpark, one thing this year has taught me, I want a large telescope... larger aperture = greater resolution... my shopping list is just getting longer and longer and it's certainly not getting any cheaper.

Shame about the lxd55... no luck with meteor showers, can barely see anything in the sky...
 
Please forgive my ignorance, but am I reading it correctly that 2700 images were involved in that Jupiter shot?! You mention mono camera and colour camera - were they video cameras? I can't imagine how you'd take so many with a stills camera...
 
Cracking photos. Well done
 
Rob, that's correct 2700 frames... The cameras are basically VGA webcams, the mono is a QHY5v guide camera for my deep sky rig, and the colour was shot using a Philips SPC900 webcam.

Thanks very much oldgit (y)
 
Thanks John, that'll make me look at webcams in a whole new light! (Pun intended!)

I shudder to think how long the processing must have taken.
 
I've planted the seed, it's my birthday in a couple of weeks so have constantly mentioned the Astrotrac TT320x and polorscope so hopefully it should have sunk in by now. ;)

Look out next year :LOL:
 
Thanks guys...

Happy Birthday Eddie, sure you'll manage great things with that prezzie ;)...
 
EdBray said:
I've planted the seed, it's my birthday in a couple of weeks so have constantly mentioned the Astrotrac TT320x and polorscope so hopefully it should have sunk in by now. ;)

Look out next year :LOL:
Click to expand...

Hope you get the Astrotrac. It looks a smart piece of kit.

With Birthday, Christmas and selling the odd bit of redundant kit I've raised enough dosh to buy an Astrotrac set-up, i'm waiting to go to London next Saturday to hopefully see it at The Widescreen Centre and ask a couple of questions before I bite the bullet and splash out!

Gary
 
John,

Your photos here and over on the SGL are amazing, can't wait to see what you get upto this year!

Gary
 
Brill photo's John, a lot of work there time & effort paid off, i mean 20 x 5minute exposures and THEN collating them into a single shot must take nearly as much time as the shooting itself not to mention the cold. Keep up the good work there's a lot of people loving the shots :)
 
Erm, WOW, that's all I can think to say really. Stunning and thanks for sharing.
 
Thanks all, here's hoping the weather gets better and I get a chance to get a decent haul this year...
 
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