IC443 Image (the ‘Jellyfish’ nebula)

Posted on February 26, 2015 by kbrown928

Image of IC443 by Graham Caller

Another excellent image by our member Graham Caller. This time it’s IC443 also called the Jellyfish Nebula. It’s a supernova remnant in the constellation of Gemini.

Click the thumbnail image above for a larger version, though note that this has been reduced in resolution for the web. The original is even more impressive.

Graham comments:

Last week was IC443 week. A couple of clear nights and I grabbed 8 hours worth of 15mins subs. Topped up this week with another 2.5 hours to improve the signal to noise ratio further.
Resultant image stacked in PixInsight and processed.

Oh! this was taken using an Ha filter.

We are hoping Graham will give us a lecture in the future, on his astroimaging techniques.

BAA Spring Meeting at Ashford, Kent

Posted on February 16, 2015 by kbrown928

Our local friends at Ashford Astronomical Society are hosting the 2015 One-Day Spring Meeting of the British Astronomical Association at The Stour Centre in Ashford on Saturday 25th April 2015.

The theme is ‘Amateur and Professional Collaboration’. The meeting has been designed to help us find out how we can be involved in real science, working as an amateur with professionals.

There will be a series of talks throughout the day, on how amateur astronomers can work in tandem with national and international projects. The ticket price includes refreshments and a buffet lunch.

Download the booking form here: Ashford BAA Spring Meeting Ticket Booking Form

Dumbell, Cigar, Triangulum, Orion, Pleiades and Moon Images

Posted on January 6, 2015 by kbrown928

Here is a collection of astronomical images captured by our member Simon Powell. (click each thumbnail for a larger version of the image)

All were taken using a Skywatcher 200PDS telescope on an HEQ5 Equatorial mount, with a Canon 70D DSLR at prime focus. The deep sky shots were stacked in Deep Sky Stacker with darks, bios shots and flats. Post processing was done with Photoshop.

Simon comments..

“Most of these were taken from central Maidstone, so light pollution is an issue, hence the Dumbell and Cigar have a lot of noise in the image. Now I’ve moved to Biddenden I’m hoping not to have that issue again!”

We welcome Simon to our area and our astronomical society!

Orion Nebula M42 Image

Posted on December 31, 2014 by kbrown928

The Great Orion Nebula (M42) by Ted Pearson

Lovely image of the Orion nebula captured by Ted Pearson on 30 December.

Andromeda Galaxy M31

Posted on October 29, 2014 by kbrown928

M31 Andromeda Galaxy, Canon 1000D, ED80, DSS, Kevin Brown

Here is another go by Kevin Brown at M31, the Andromeda Galaxy. This time using sub-images captured in Canon 1000D RAW format.

This resulting image is made from 5 lights plus 1 dark, each of 180s exposure at 1600 ISO, stacked using Deep Sky Stacker software.

The settings used with DSS were rather random (more experience needed), so a better final result is probably possible…

Andromeda Galaxy M31

Posted on October 8, 2014 by kbrown928

The first decent picture taken from Kevin Brown’s DIY observatory. A very pleasing result after the build this summer, which was helped so much by CADSAS member Terry.

M31 Andromeda Galaxy plus M32 and M110. This is a stacked, colour adjusted composite image from .jpg lights (yes, mistake, should have been raw format).

Captured using Canon 1000D camera and Skywatcher ED80 refractor.

Image of the Sun

Posted on June 19, 2014 by kbrown928

Sun Image 7/7/14 by Graham Caller (click for larger)

Image of the Sun captured on 7th July 2014 by our member Graham Caller. Comprising 80 frames at 1/4000 sec exposure, stacked in Registax software.

Albireo imaged with Alan Young Telescope

Posted on June 9, 2014 by kbrown928

Albireo imaged with Alan Young Telescope 06062014 (click for larger version)

An image of double star Albireo in constellation Cygnus, imaged with the Alan Young Telescope.

Albireo consists of an orange giant of magnitude 3, together with the blue/green magnitude 5 companion.

It is good to see that our work on improving the Alan Young Telescope is now producing results, in the form of better quality astro-images.

Jupiter – night of 16th/17th March 2014

Posted on March 20, 2014 by kbrown928

Image of Jupiter captured by our member Brian Bennewith.

Brian comments..

This picture was captured on my Orion Starshoot Imager, with a run of 1 minute taking 600 frames and then aligning and stacking using “Registak” software.

In the same frame “Io” is peeking out from behind the planet, (just on the edge), at about 8 o’clock and about one jupiter diameter away is “Ganymede” on the same side. On the version I have sent you, Ganymede is dificult to see, but on the original it is clearer

Fusion Energy Lecture by Robin Stafford-Allen (Culham)

Posted on February 11, 2014 by kbrown928

Yesterday Robin Stafford-Allen from the Culham Centre For Fusion Engineering visited us at Cranbrook School and gave an excellent lecture.

He spoke about his work on fusion energy since the early 1980s as an engineer on the JET (Joint European Torus) project at Culham, and most recently, the ITER tokomak project at Cadarache in France.

He kindly provided a copy of his slide presentation: [Download] (warning large file)

Also, here are the two short videos captured within JET, included in his presentation (warning large files, wmv format):

1) A Burst [Download]

2) A Plasma Disruption [Download]