On Friday night around 23:30 UT I shot some images of the Moon from my backyard. The 14-day-old Moon stood low above the southern horizon, and looked deep orange.
The colour image was shot with the Nikon Coolpix 4500 and the TAL 100RS (4-inch refractor) using a 20mm Vixen Lanthanum eyepiece.
After processing the image the contrast between the dark mare and brighter highlands become clearly visible. In the Mare itself you can see darker and lighter patches of Mare material. The Tycho and Copernicus lunar rays are also clearly visible on the processed image.
The image was stacked and processed using Keith’s Image Stacker. I stacked 19 original images (1600x1200, 1/15s, f3.3, ISO 100, spot metering) into 1 new image. The image was processed using unsharp masking and some adjustment of levels/histogram.
Yesterday there was a very big group of sunspot visible (nr. 0652). In the early morning while the sun was rising through the mist it was even visible to the naked eye (use eclips-shades!). The group looks spectacular through the telescope at all magnifications!
Later that day I shot some .....follow this link to read the full story
Centred between the constellations of Hercules and Cygnus lies a small constellation with a very distinctive star pattern, Lyra (the lyre). Four stars form the main “body” of the Lyre: Beta, Gamma, Delta and Zeta Lyrae. Together they make a kind parallelogram. At the northwestern corner of this parallelogram a triangle of follow this link to read the full story........
Yesterday I tested the Baader AstroSolar Photographic Filter in combination with the Baader Kontinuum filter. This combination only lets a small part of the spectrum (540nm) get through and should give high contrast in the sunspots and granulation. Here are the first results. The images where taken with the Nikon Coolpix 4500 mounted on
Yesterday I constructed a new solar filter for photographing the Sun with my Coolpix 4500 and the webcam. I constructed the filter from cardboard and Baader AstroSolar PhotoFilm with a neutral density of 3.8. This filter is only for photographic use! Do not use Astro
On april 1st 2004 I observed the 11-day-old moon with the TAL 200K. For an observing report with digital images please follow this link. There you will find not only a detailed report but also an overview image of the moon and some detailed images of Sinus Iridum, Mare Humorum and the Schiller-Tycho area.
Enjoy!
Last night my new telescope, the TAL 100 RS, a four inch refractor (achromatic) got its first light. I mounted the tube (4.4 kg) on the EQ 6 and started with Vega. I immediately noticed a few differences with my TAL 200K. The field of view is twice as wide with the 100RS. My 200K has a ......follow this link to read the full story
Last night I observed some interesting double stars, an open cluster and a planetary nebula with my 15x80 binoculars and the Sky-window. All objects are situated in Lyra. I started around 22.00 hours 22 and ended the session around 23:45 UT. I used the SkyAtlas 2000 to locate the objects.
I started my observing session around 22:10 UT with .....follow this link to read the full story