The Pole Star...

By 3000AD, Gamma Cephei will be closer to the pole than Polaris!

In 12,000BC Vega was at the pole, and will be there again in 14,000AD!

Polar alignment during the time of the Greeks would of been a nightmare! They had no pole star due to the slow precession of Earth's axis, rotating every 26,000 years.

Solar System Visualiser

Came across this really cool Solar System visualiser check out Jupiter and Saturn :O

Created by Dr. Douglas P. Hamilton U. Maryland.

Crescent Nebula, NGC 6888

My last image from Les Granges trip 2010
http://horizonastro.blogspot.com/2010/12/les-granges-2010.html


Formed by the fast stellar wind from a Wolf-Rayet star (massive stars, 20x the solar mass which lose mass rapidly) colliding with and energizing the slower moving wind ejected by the star when it became a red giant about 400,000 years ago. It's an emission nebula located in the constellation Cygnus.

Object: NGC 6888 - The Crescent Nebula (5,000ly)

Telescope: TEC140

Camera: Atik 4000 Mono

Exposures: R-12x300s; G-12x300s; B-12x300s; Ha-16x600s; OIII-24x600s

Processing: DSS, PS CS3

Processed as R(Ha)G(OIII)B(OIII), all added at 50% blend mode lighten.

NGC 6820 and NGC 6823 (Ha)

The last narrowband image from Les Granges
http://horizonastro.blogspot.com/2010/12/les-granges-2010.html

An interesting, not often imaged emission nebula (NGC 6820) and open cluster (NGC 6823) located in the constellation of Vulpecula. The centre of the open cluster contains very large and hot blue stars, which will last millions rather than billions of years (e.g. yellow stars such as the Sun) before burning themselves out. The large dust and gas pillars are probably formed when radiation from nearby stars pushes and erodes it away much like the well known "Elephant's Trunk" in IC 1396.

Object: NGC 6820, NGC 6823 (6000ly)

Telescope: Tak FSQ85

Camera: Atik 320E

Exposures: Ha-68x300s

Processing: DSS, PS CS3

The camera showed class here, picking up loads of the faint stuff!

Crescent Nebula (Ha)

Another from Les Granges, shot in Ha as the full moon was around.
http://horizonastro.blogspot.com/2010/12/les-granges-2010.html

Object: NGC 6888, Crescent Nebula (5,000ly)

Telescope: Tak FSQ85

Camera: Atik 320E

Exposures: Ha-24x600s, 31x300s

Processing: DSS, PS CS3

M27 With Outer Halo

Taken from Les Granges, Provence.
See here http://horizonastro.blogspot.com/2010/12/les-granges-2010.html

The Dumbbell Nebula was the first planetary nebula to be discovered in 1764 by Charles Messier. The central White Dwarf is currently the largest known star of its type. It is located in the constellation of Vulpecula.

Object: M27- Dumbbell Nebula (1,360ly)

Telescope: TEC140

Camera: Atik 4000 Mono and OSC

Exposures: OSC-60x300s; Ha-51x600s; OIII-9x600s (bin 2x2)

Processing: DSS, RegiStar, PS CS3

Les Granges - 2010

If you are reading this wondering what Les Granges is, the best description (I can come up with) is, it's the perfect getaway for any astronomer, cosy accommodation, great company, outstanding equipment and most importantly exceptionally dark skies.

Located 3 hours north of Marseilles is the small village (when I say village, I mean just a few houses!) of Etoile St Cyrice. At 900m, the last building in the village belongs to Olly Penrice and is hidden behind a rise in the mountainous terrain - which is important as it shields the area from the very minimal light pollution (8 shielded sodium streetlights) from the village. It's a remote location (usually comes with dark skies), ideal for soaking up some sun, enjoying the peace and quiet and stunning scenery. If you don't mind an hour and a bit drive we enjoyed a tour of the Observatoire de Haute-Provence. There's a large collection of astro magazines and books to keep you occupied as well as local wildlife to gawp at. We were there in July and saw wild boar, deer, many birds and butterflies from just outside the farmhouse. 

Les Granges, the foremost building on the left and
surrounding area

One of the resident deer

 Olly has top class kit and experience to satisfy expert imagers and long time visual observers as well as complete beginners. There are 3 permanent roll back shed type set-ups, housing a TEC140 Apo, Takahashi FSQ85 and a 20" dobsonian. The refractors are both mounted on Skywatcher EQ6 Pros and when combined with either of the Atik 4000 cameras (mono or OSC) Olly provides, they produce really high quality results.

Olly imaging during daylight (not really :) just a full moon)

The weather gets a little extreme in summer

When imaging, the limiting factor for exposure length will certainly not be the sky. Tracking errors or camera noise will limit long before the sky, it is simply awesome!

I'll just finally say... We will definitely be going back!

(Astro pics from Les Granges soon...)

First Post! - Star Party

Hi everyone, here goes with my astronomy blog...

I made it up to Hereford in April for the 5th stargazerslounge star party. The weather, surprisingly, gave us 2 clear nights out of 3 and a particular Icelandic volcano meant no air traffic to contend with - result!!
After initial camera trouble (the power lead broke) I was able to image for about 4hrs each night.

I concentrated on one target, M101. Here's 60 x 6mins (6hrs) worth:

Darks, flats and bias used. Stacked in deepskystacker and processed in PS CS3.

And an image of the Moon showing Earthshine.

The bright crescent is as a result of light directly from the Sun reflecting off the Moon's surface, whereas the rest of the Moon is visible due to reflected light from the Earth (much less).

I'm hoping to put up a few recent images and some info about the equipment I use soon....