First Moon mosaic

My very first attempt of imaging Moon this way, taking videos systematically, process every video by stacking the frames. In this case I had 5 frames (from 5 videos) to stitch together.

Moon details

Moon was in constellation Gemini.Visual magnitude was -10.7, apparent size of 31.2 arcmin.
71.9% of its nearside surface was illuminated, distance from Earth 382 945 km.
54° above horizon.

Processing

Well because it was my very first try, I did not want to waste too much effort in case if all my work goes to bin :)

So I sort of stayed along the terminator - the dividing line between the illuminated and unilluminated area of the Moon to see what can I get out of it. 

My project proved to be a great success, as putting the frames on top of each other I realized, all the knowledge I have gained during the last 2 years about post processing payed off eventually. Because all the frames need to look the same, can't be different in contrast or any other factors that might ruin the smoothness of the final result. 

So here are the five original frames, after I did the stacking in AS2 and Wavelets in Registax. 

Then I used Photoshop to cut off the edges of each frame, they show some stacking errors there and we don't need that at all. After that simply layering the frames on each other, creating the full size photo mosaic. When it was done, did some post processing, contrast, brightness, clarity etc...

After all the hard work a smile suddenly appeared on my face :) My Moon looked like this:

But I love to create something useful, mainly for myself to learn from when the sky is couldy, but of course for sharing too :)

So found a good Moon map and began to mark the most important features (to me) on my photo. Also all the visible landing site of the Apollo program - Apollo 11, 15, 16 and 17...

Voila... !

Links

The mosaic in original size:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/metrolinaszabi/25581810440/in/dateposted-public/

Buying my 127/1500 maksutov scope - 19th Feb 2016

Since I purchased my very first telescope in 2013 - a Skywatcher 200PDS with an eq5 mount - things has changed a whole lot.... :)

Firstly I needed a small, portable second scope that I can carry around anytime, easy to assemble and doesn't take too much space. After considering many options, I decided to give a go on a Skywatcher Skymax 90/1250 maksutov scope.

To buy that small scope was an eye opener to me. Realized the potential in this design, as I mainly do planetary work this small, but powerful thing is purely amazing. Looking back, I should have started with this scope instead the SW200/1000.

After giving me so much joy and great memories, than I decided to upgrade it to a bigger one. On the photos below this is the one size bigger brother, a 127/1500 maksutov from the same maker.  I took these photos at the evening of purchase and I was full of excitement :)

Since february I've been testing this scope and paired with a Zwo ASI 120MC planetary camera - it performs just superbly....
In the coming up posts I'll share some of the photos I took during the opposition period of Jupiter 2016.

       

The day ISS transited Saturn

After all the hassle about APOD's fake ISS transit on Saturn, I gave my very best to document the event as real and precise as possible. And will do so in the future....

                                       
    

The exact set up I have used to record the event (photo above was taken in UK)
Skymax 90/1250 MC and an ASI120MC cam

Composite photo of six frames of ISS and the stacked Saturn frames (photo of Saturn at bottom of this post)

I booked my holiday a few months ago to Gran Canaria and was planning to take my small travel scope (Skywatcher Skymax 90/1250) with me to do some astronomy there under that wonderful clear night sky.




Before I actually traveled, double checked the app called ISS Transit Prediction just to see what if.. than realized ISS might transit the ringed planet. But I was very sceptical (coming from London lol) as always, you never know the weather and other circumstances that can ruin the careful planning....
But everything went fine, sky was exceptionally clear and everything was ready for a good attempt...
Although I've been in astrophotography for 3 years, I mainly worked with dslr and only recently bought myself an ASI 120 MC planetary camera, I had lots of doubts about my own skills, mainly about camera settings (choosing the right gain and exposure), plus to fine control an eq1 mount with an ASI on it is, well let me say not the easiest.....

This is the original footage, no changes or modifications made to it. I did only debayer it, because I record in FireCapture and it does better job if debayer function disabled during recording.
Exact capture time was 6:51am (25th January 2016)

But here is the final result, a nice video about the best astro-moment of my life. It was uplifting, rewarding and a fantastic feeling to see ISS actually flying through the queen of planets.  By mistake I wrote 2015 instead of 2016 in the title - it happens to me every year after changing the calendar in January :)

    

Also a time lapse movie (below) from the camera shots. I left my Canon 600D with an 8mm Samyang fisheye lens clicking. It covers partially the setup and the actual event too.

 

Saturn from that location was at a generous 27° high above horizon at 6:51am UTC. Just for comparison in London it only climbed to 14° only at the exact same time.

Latitude of Gran Canaria, Spain 28°
Latitude of London,UK 51°

Mind that for this photo I was tracking Saturn manually, not motors on eq1 mounts!!!
It is all up to smartly processing the frames.

These are the saved screenshots for me to help finding a proper place near the airport of Gran Canaria, from calsky.com/cs.cgi and from heavens-above.com.

Centerline for Saturn - large area of the Airport

Centerline for Saturn - close up of a possible suitable area

ISS informations - brightness, elevation and time 

The original Fire Capture log file for the video

Update: for some reason my ASI cam missed one frame after the actual transit, no idea why. I was recording at average of 40fps, normal USB 2 port so might be the data transfer or whatever technical reason...

ISS transits Moon

Since I downloaded ISS Transit Prediction app for Android, I spent a little time to catch the space station crossing basically any celestial object. So far Sun and Moon is done, but still in experimental phase. I could only use my telescope for Moon only, the previous post about the Sun was taken with a dslr sadly.

I also have to find out how the prediction exactly works. Than I can zoom my scope onto one certain area so the resolution hopefully going to be much much better. 

ISS transits Sun

Canon 600D + Baader solar filter

Jupiter rotation

Very first attempt ever but I'm happy with it so far. Hopefully better results about to come, but one thing is absolutely clear, I need a better imaging kit :)
This is an extremely challenging task,every frame was an inidividual photo made from a video being stacked and registaxed. The very first frame was a bit different from the others, because it was fairly bright due to dawn.

Also I have limited view from my balcony, the Great Red Spot just passed half of its way across the visible part of the planet when visibility became a problem. Originally I was hoping to capture its journey till the GRS dissaperars on the right side of Jupiter. Never happened.

Also this was a test of my imaging skills and my kit at fairly nice conditions. Only problem was the Moon being pretty close to the planet, I don't know how much was the photo quality, clarity or brightness affected but for sure it didn't help it at all....

Polar scope - O-ring to stop small optics wobble inside

It's been a year since I decided to buy a scope and begin to explore the heavens. I must admit that it was a great year, got pretty far with gaining experience using the scope equipped with a dslr and how to capture different objects with different imaging methods. Eventually I had my first photos of planets, meteor, Moon and ISS. So I love my Skywatcher Explorer 200PDS+EQ-5 mount.
But still there is one thing I couldn't sort out yet. Polar Alignment... Slowly becoming my nightmare, tried many many different ways, watched tutorials etc.
One thing became soon clear, if I do everything the right way than there must be something wrong with my equipment's settings. I had an attempt to remove the polar scope, but only the bottom part came off (small piece of optics with Cassiopeia and Big Dipper on it). After that whenever I turned the RA axis around whilst looking through polar scope the little optics in the polar scope was wobbling, making polar alignment impossible.
Later I've been told they put a rubber O-ring in between the optics and the small tube, as optics inserted the O-ring keeps it right at a good fix position.
Of course it was probably one little step to resolve the misery of my polar alignment issue, but this might be useful for someone.
My big question was the size of the rubber ring. I did my researches on that but found no answer on exact parameters.
Well went into a DIY store, bought 5 different size of O-rings I thought might fit the requirements and luckily one did. I had to acknowledge the wobble has stopped.
Hopefully one problem less...

Inside diameter 18.0mm
Section               3.0mm

 

 







This video I found and is a perfect explanation of this problem. By the way many good videos can be found on youtube under name Astronomyshed, same gentlemen who's in this video too.
From 2:30 becomes interesting.......