Continuing with my project to get images of every Messier object from the Bradford Robotic Telescope here’s M2:
Posts Tagged ‘Amateur’
Messier 2
Wednesday, November 25th, 2009Messier 27
Sunday, November 8th, 2009I submitted a job request on the Bradford Robotic Telescope ages a go and happened to remember this afternoon to check to see if it had been completed – it had been!
Exposure time was 120000 ms, filter used was an OIII and I used the Galaxy Telescope. I didn’t do any processing myself because I have absolutely no idea how to, so the image was processed using a beta of a image generator the website provides.
I think it looks alright – but not as good as it does with my own two eyes 
[edit - 22/11/09]
Ran this image through Photoshop:
Messier 13
Saturday, September 19th, 2009
Messier 13 Sketch
Sketch Details
Object: Messier 13 (NGC 6205)
Date: 18/09/09
Time: 21:10
Telescope: Skywatcher 102mm F/4.9 Refractor
Eyepiece(s): Televue Nagler T4 12mm
Magnification: 41.7x
Field of View: 1.97°
Finally, a reasonably successful session!
Friday, September 18th, 2009Well, I checked the weather forecast at work this afternoon and saw it was clear so I decided to setup the telescope again when I got home.
I’d dug my Skywatcher 102mm Refractor out of the cupboard last week, and my batteries for the RDFs arrived earlier this week, so I was good to go for a change.
I started off with the Baader Hyperion Zoom again, just to give it another chance, and I am glad to say that things were definitely better this time. I was pleased to be able to find objects with the longer focal length settings and then zoom in to pick out more detail. I did have to refocus more than I was expecting to when zooming in, but it didn’t seem to be too much of an issue. I’m still not overly bowled over by the narrowness of the longer focal lengths, and this time I definitely picked up some “fuzziness” in the outer edge of the field of view – she’s a keeper for the time being.
After taking the Zoom out of the telescope, I found myself using my Nagler T4 12mm eyepiece for most of the remainder of the session with considerable success. First up was M13 in Hercules which I managed to make a few notes on and complete a half decent sketch of – I’ll try to get the sketch up here once I find the cable for my scanner.
I then tried, without success, to locate M57 and M27 for a while. I think it was still a little too bright, and the light pollution from where I observe in my backyard is pretty bad so I wasn’t able to see anything of these two objects. I think I’ll leave these until I can get my Dob setup and the focuser / collimation sorted.
While messing around in the South trying to find M57 and M27 I noticed a very bright “Star” low down, just about to disappear behind the tree near my house. Memories flooded back as this was wear Jupiter was the first time I had ever observed it – and low and behold – there she was again! I spent some time on Jupiter, and even pushed the magnification up with my 4mm Ortho eyepiece, and was able to make out dark bands and saw 4 moons.
Had scan round the Northern skies but didn’t find anything and then decided to call it a night at around 22:15. All in all, a good session, although I had forgotten just how bright the skies were and this made it quite difficult to get dark adapted and then find and see things. It’s a shame I cannot drive so I could go to a dark site once in a while.
An Observing Session (of sorts)
Sunday, September 13th, 2009After looking at the weather forecast Saturday morning I decided that in the evening I would set up the grab-n-go scope and try out the new Baader Hyperion Zoom eyepiece I bought a while back. It’s always a good idea to check that everything is in good working order before a session – but to hell with that, I’d rather have to fix things in the dark!
To start with, the head on my EZ Touch mount had come loose after months of sitting in the corner doing nothing, so as well as rotating in the azimuth, it just plain rotated whenever you tried to move it! This was easily fixed though, with my handy allen key set from my Earth, Moon & Sun model I am building. After some tightening, everything was back to normal again.
Then came the focuser, which If I remember correctly, had the same problem last time I tried to observe. As soon as I was pointing the telescope over about 30-40° in altitude, I couldn’t move the focus at all, and with my heavier eyepieces, the focus would slide out on its own due to the extra weight. Again, an allen key and some googling this time came to the rescue and solved the problem.
During all this, I discovered my Red Dot Finder didn’t work and it was one of those flat watch-type batteries that no one, not even dedicated battery shops carry. So I was without a finder for the whole session – my first session in at least 18 months, maybe much, much longer.
Thoughts on the Zoom
After all the hype garnered by the eyepiece over at Cloudy Nights I thought I’d give one a try as it’d be a nice grab-n-go eyepiece for my ZS66.
I can’t say that I was super impressed unfortunately.
The Good
- Twist up / down eye guard
- Easy eye placement
- Sharp across entire field of view
The Bad
- Very difficult to read what zoom setting you are on in the dark
- Twisting the eye guard up or down caused the zoom setting to change and movement of the telescope
- The longest focal length (24mm) is useless as a “finder” as the field of view is far too narrow at 44° to actually find anything
- The shortest focal length (8mm) didn’t seem short enough (not enough magnification), and perversely, seemed far too wide at 72°!
Now, I appreciate this was my first observing session in a very long time so I won’t be selling up quite yet, but as far as the eyepiece goes, I don’t think I would ever use it as the only piece for a session. I would always need a longer focal length piece with a wider field of view for finding things, and I would always need a shorter focal length for high powered stuff. I’ll give it another go, with equipment hopefully firing on all cylinders, but keep an eye on Astronomy Buy & Sell UK!
The Session
Nothing much to report due to the RDF issue, I did have a scan around the Milky Way running through Cygnus, which was nice, and I spotted a small fuzzy patch that was M13 through my 35mm Panoptic, but lost it when switching to the 12mm Nagler T4.
Some Constellations
Friday, October 3rd, 2008
- Image via Wikipedia
I remember the last time I did manage to get out with my telescope, which was sometime earlier in the year – maybe early spring, I didn’t really see a lot because I had no idea where or at what I was looking. It had been so long since I had been out observing I had forgotten the constellations and even very basic star-hopping.
So at 20:00 after popping outside for a cigarette I looked up and noticed it was reasonably clear and some stars were visible. After a few seconds my brain kicked in and memories came back (when I was observing regularly it was at this time of the year and through winter).
I could see Altair, Deneb and Vega giving me the constellations Aquila, Cygnus and Lyra. It was still a little too light to see anything fainter, but if I had any idea where my binoculars where I think I could have found M29, M39, M56 & M57 without too much bother.
Now just to wait for a clearer night and better weather and I can get the telescope out.
