Course on DSRL astrophotography

Back at home, after a weekend at Hauho. There we spent a nice weekend, with other enthusiastic colleagues.

Some info sessions were held on image processing technology. One session that was most most important for me, was held by Petri Kehusmaa. Also other items were covered, like stacking of the images and softaware details - with AviStack, RegiStax and IRIS.

I enjoyed of being there, and got many new ideas and tricks to use in my own astronomy hobby. Thanks for the organisers, lecturers and colleagues for the good weekend.

PS:
The collimation result is not the most important thing, it's the high quality time spent doing that on a good company :-)

Nacreous clouds

I had nice suprise, when I was returning to Espoo from "digikuvaajat" meeting held at Hauho. Sun was setting behing the treelines, and sky was colourful. Low in the sky at direction of sunset, there was some wavy clouds visible. Nacreous clouds !!! It is first time for spotting them in 2011. Latest really beutiful nacreous clouds, I have seen man years ago (too long in my opinion). If I correctly remember, it was 1995.

Blog updates

Since it has been a long time, without posting anything here -> would have to say that I've been busy with recently. On the first days of May 2010, I had a possibility to watch the auroras at Espoo. In period of november 2010 to January 2011 - it has been only few clear night, so no things to mention with planet / moon imaging. On the year 2011, I will continue with planets, and preparing my equipment for DS-photography for 2011 autumn.

Startrails and visual observing

In beginning of this week, I visited to Nuuksio with my colleague. Result of the trip was this star trail photo. It was made with Startrails -software (developed by Achim Schaller). Used lens was Sigma 4.5mm/2.8. Same is available also in video file, to it see visit -> here <--.


We also did some visual observing of different targets. Moon showed a sign of Werner X -symbol. Occasionally polar cap of Mars was visible (150x magnification at SW 127 MAK). Saturn was a bit too low for good observing, only two faint darker bands were visible. Colors were distorted, due to refraction caused by atmosphere.

Imaging Source cameras (installation)

Installation procedure was pretty straightforward. First connect camera with USB cable. A note "New HW detected" will appear on screen. Also notification "Problem detected ... might not work properly" is seen, ignore this one. Start software installation from the disk supplied. First select "Install driver" -option, then continue with "Install IC Capture.AS". When software is started, the live image from camera shall be visible.
I used two "targets" for testing, sample grey card and a small stamp. Both were imaged with MF Nikkor 55/2.8 lens attached. I ajusted gray card exposure to get three "spikes" visible on histogram. I still need to play around with camera settings, to get a best estimate for first astro imaging session.

Camera is equipped with 1.25"/C -adapter. In my William Optics SCT grayford focuser 2"-1.25" adapters brass compression ring is bit too wide for 1.25"/C adapter. Hopefully this does not cause any problems "in the field". There is another ring (C/CS adapter?) also in camera, this I do not need in my imaging setup.

Now I only need clear skies, weather forecast looks a bit more promising. Clear skies were estimated at night between friday and saturday...

Imaging Source cameras (order completed)

Yesterday I have picked up my new planetary camera DMK31AU03 from local post office. It's meant to replace my SPC900NC -webcam.
The ordered package contains camera itself, software disks, USB cable, C->1.25" adapter and Baader 1.25" UV/IR blocking filter. Thanks to Ylva and Miikka for a good deal...

Nikon EH-6 secrets, part 5

Here is the view to a bottom sticker at Nikon EH-6 power supply:Described are - input voltage range, ouput voltage and current (13.5V, 5A) and also pins of power connector.