Our Observatory is CLOSED tonight
Cigar Galaxy – 90secs single frame captured with the Alan Young telescope
Bode’s Galaxy – 90secs single frame captured with the Alan Young telescope
These are single frame images captured with the Alan Young Telescope on 15 January 2016
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.
Last night Ted suggested taking images in fluorescent light setting (rather than the normal White Balance), based on advice on his Northern Lights trip.
So we did. Here is a resulting image of the Orion Nebula. The colour temperature of Fluorescent light is lower (warmer – more yellow)
Additional data:-
The Canon dSLR has eight white balance presets on its cameras.
AWB (Auto White Balance) will look at any scene as it’s being shot and attempt to neutralize the color it sees from 3000-7000 K.
Daylight uses Canon’s default color temperature of 5200 K;
Shade works at 7000 K; Cloudy at 6000 K; Tungsten at 3200 K; White Fluorescent is set to 4000 K (there are huge color temperature variations in fluorescent lights); Flash at 6000 K; and Custom White Balance, which can neutralize light with a color temperature anywhere between 2000 and 10,000 K.
Taken 21st December 2012. The waxing Moon by Terry Martin, via the Alan Young telescope, Ivan Walton for captures and Deep Sky Stacker.
On Monday (5th November – with fireworks exploding nearby) we captured some images of Jupiter with the Alan Young telescope.
We used raw format on the Canon dSLR (.CR2), for the images.
(Captures by Ted Pearson, composite image by Kevin Brown using Gimp.org)
Here is an image of Jupiter:
And below, a composite image of Jupiter (1/200 second exposure) and its four “Galilean” moons – Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto (1/4 second exposure).
Declination Axis Stepper Motor Drive Test
Today we tested the newly developed mechanism for the Alan Young telescope’s declination axis drive. It is powered by a stepper motor, controlled by an Arduino microprocessor and EasyDriver board.
We have fabricated a system of three belts and pulleys to give a reduction ratio of 398:1. This means the stepper motor running at a practical maximum speed of 30 rpm, produces a slew rate of around 0.5 degrees per second.
The motor is controlled by software running on the Arduino and so its rotation speed can be easily slowed to give a lower slew rate, as we did today.
When testing it today for the first time, it worked well and easily moved the telescope tube smoothly up and down. It also locked the tube in position once stopped, because of course, the stepper motor remains powered up, even when not moving.
It was a fun and promising test. We now need to complete the fly-off, main belt tensioning mechanism and refine the software-based control system.
M109 26 March 2012 Processed & desaturated
M51 Whirlpool Galaxy 26 March 2012 Processed
M109 and M51 taken with the Alan Young telescope.
M67 OpenCluster - 27 Jan12 (click for larger)
Continuing our quest to capture images of the Messier objects, we secured another one at last night’s observing session
This image was captured using the Alan Young 22.5″ reflector telescope.
M67 (NGC 2682) in Cancer. An open cluster known to be one of the oldest in excess of 10 billion years old!!
Last night, some adjustments were made to our big telescope, the Alan Young, to improve alignment.
Then taking advantage of the clear, cold night, some “test” images were taken. These are some of its sharpest images so far.
Here are 3 images of Jupiter with moons and the Orion Nebula M42. (click each thumbnail for a larger version)