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Posted by D Gray at 17:32 on 2011 Dec 24
Here is a second attempt: some trouble with attachment it appears.Hi Everyone, Rather too windy last night and was finally persuaded to leave the 415mm D-K in it’s already overlong slumber when Jupiter (n/e) was seen to show marked arrhythmic-blinking! So I decided on some ‘sightseeing’ with the 20×100 binos. Checking out some possible targets on SkyMap Pro I chanced to notice that the asteroid 109 Felicitas was conveniently near nu & tau Aurigae; and was well seen. So with felicitations to all devoted sky-watchers I send the attached greeting – tinkered together this afternoon to amuse myself, as the prospects for tonight look pretty hopeless. All the best,David.
Posted by D Gray at 17:16 on 2011 Dec 24
Have sent this out to others already but as my broadband is working relatively briskly on the BAA site I post my greetings below also: Rather too windy last night and was finally persuaded to leave the 415mm D-K in it’s already overlong slumber when Jupiter (n/e) was seen to show marked arrhythmic-blinking! So I decided on some ‘sightseeing’ with the 20×100 binos. Checking out some possible targets on SkyMap Pro I chanced to notice that the asteroid 109 Felicitas was conveniently near nu & tau Aurigae; and was well seen. So with felicitations to all devoted sky-watchers I send the attached greeting – tinkered together this afternoon to amuse myself, as the prospects for tonight look pretty hopeless. All the best,David.
Posted by David Basey at 18:56 on 2011 Dec 14
Graham, thanks for the note, it prompted me to explore the Computing Section’s webpages which is something I’ve never really done before.It’s becoming a really useful resource. If anything it seems a shame that the charts and applets are ‘buried away’ where they are. To my mind they merit a separate home page link, say ‘Observing Tools’.David.
Posted by Marlyn Smith at 11:29 on 2011 Dec 12
Thanks Nick, that’s excellent. Really easy to download and good quality video. I enjoyed your Sky Notes although my snowbound observatory as your first slide was a surprise! Although that was last year, I had a repeat performance last week; now just the storms to get through!
Posted by Jeremy at 07:01 on 2011 Dec 12
Thanks for uploading the videos so promptly, Nick.Well worth watching.Go well!Jeremy
Posted by Gary Poyner at 18:58 on 2011 Dec 11
Massive improvement on both audio and video Nick. Well done! Enjoyed the meeting very much :-)Gary
Posted by James Lancashire at 02:03 on 2011 Dec 10
Had a brief look from Bristol on the day before max (Fri I think) but nothing seen in about 30min break between clouds. Max (Sat?) was cloudy.No luck earlier in summer with Perseid max and DSLR from NW Scotland 🙁
Posted by Duncan Bryson at 23:06 on 2011 Dec 01
Paul A Brierley wrote:
The BAA publish a good beginners, guide book, on digtal slr imaging.As for cameras.I believe most, if not all Canon DSLR, are the camera of choice. The 1000D being a particularly good camera, used by many.But the more expensive Nikon cameras, are also proving popular.Below is a web link for Jerry Lodriguss website. Here I think you’ll find a fair bit of information.http://www.astropix.com/HTML/I_ASTROP/NIK_CAN.HTMI have a 1000D and let me recommend it highly. It is an incredibly good camera and does me well. It does not have a video mode. I have not changed mine as I love taking landscape photographs, which you can see on my website if you wish. Also on my website is my Moon photo which was taken through a 4inch telescope attached to my 1000DClear skies
Posted by David Mottershead at 20:10 on 2011 Dec 01
HelloFor those of us using Nikon DSLRs, the best software I’ve come across for controlling the camera from the laptop is DCam Capture:http://www.bernd-peretzke.de/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6:dcamcapture-engl&catid=1:software&Itemid=3Just a pity that Nikon don’t provide such software themselves, as Canon do for some of their DSLRs.
Posted by Tony Morris at 22:22 on 2011 Nov 23
MartinI use an old Toshiba laptop with a P4 processor that generates so much heat that it keeps my keyboard free of damp as I sometimes sit outside next to my ‘scope and camera setup.I have found that using BackyardEOS that my setup time is greatly reduced as I can achieve framing and focus much quicker. At this point I could unplug my PC and carry on using my TC80N3 controller but its informative to watch the frame preview showing the collected image quality deteriorating as the objects sink into the western horizon or the sky quality going down hill!I added a jack plug to my TC80N3 so I can control my 450D just in case you were wondering. But the Chinese TC80N3 copies work well and don’t cost much more than buying the cables and plugs from MaplinsTony
Posted by TonyAngel at 10:34 on 2011 Nov 23
Watched them last night. Very good, just wish I could have been able to see them live. Thank you for the effort.
Posted by Jeremy at 22:37 on 2011 Nov 21
Many thanks for getting these videos uploaded so promptly, Nick.Well worth watching.Go well!Jeremy
Posted by M C Butcher at 10:54 on 2011 Nov 21
Tony,Many thanks for your advice. What I didn’t say in my response to Gordon was that our weather up here can be so ‘breezy’ that I don’t have an observatory (there are several occasions each winter when I wouldn’t be certain that it would still be there in the morning). Therefore I set up my telescope each night when it looks clear. As I don’t fancy leaving my telescope outside whilst I am inside at the computer and we either have heavy dew (if calm) or incessant showers it means that I don’t use my computer with my camera. I does mean that I have less to rush inside when the rain approaches!Thanks anyway.Martin
Posted by M C Butcher at 10:40 on 2011 Nov 21
Robin,Great – I’ve given it a try and it seems to be just what I was after. Many thanks.Martin
Posted by Tony Morris at 16:25 on 2011 Nov 20
MartinHave you tried using BackyardEOS to controll your 40D?BackyardEOS can also stream the live view to your PC and record it so you may be surprised at the results you can get out of your DSLR on planetary work.The AVI’s can be handled by Registax with no problemswww.backyardeos.com/its currently $25.00 USDAlso have a dabble with Pixinsight as you may find that you can do all your image processing in one package with surprising results.Let me know how you get onRegardsTony
Posted by TonyAngel at 14:06 on 2011 Nov 20
Hi Nick, Just downloading it now. I did watch the first five minutes of it streamed for a preview and the quality is good.
Posted by Robin Vann at 13:32 on 2011 Nov 20
I think the best place is the Jupos project website:http://jupos.privat.t-online.de/Pick the item ‘GRS Longitude (Sys. 2)’ from the menu on the left.
Posted by Mark Jones at 21:33 on 2011 Nov 19
Thanks Callum and Gary. Good point about seeing if I can see light through the coating, I’ll try that first. I am only assuming it’ll need doing but perhaps it just needs a careful clean. All the best,Mark
Posted by Nick James at 21:41 on 2011 Nov 18
Peter Meadows has pointed out my Leonid event times for last night are wrong. At the moment my software reports event times with respect to the start of the video and I have to manually input the video start time from a different log (something definitely to change). This morning I did this but transposed the time so all my events were reported with times 2m57s too early.The bright Leonid was actually at 02:15:57 UTC.Nick.
