Last night's Moon and a corona

A few pictures from last night...

Unretouched image of the Moon (apart from being rescaled to 800 pixels
wide)
http://www.digital-astronomy.co.uk/temp/Moon_2004-09-03_unretouched.jpg

Centre portion of the above image, sharpened and constrast boosted a
tad
http://www.digital-astronomy.co.uk/temp/Moon_2004-09-03_cropped.jpg

Finally, the Moon shows it's colours ;-)
http://www.digital-astronomy.co.uk/temp/lunar_corona.jpg


--
Pete
Homepage at http://www.pbl33.co.uk
Home of the Lunar Parallax Demonstration Project

Pete Lawrence wrote:

Nice pics Pete.

My eyepiece arrived Friday, so I spent a happy Friday night/Sat
morning observing that moon with my new 8" reflector. Well, that
was after I spent most of the evening trying to find my way
around the new scope and mount, and wondering why the Dec. motor
drives on my GEM1 didn't seem to be working properly.

It turns out that the controller doesn't seem to be sending the
tracking signal to the Dec. motor (but does work on activating 2X
or 8X speed). Has anyone here experienced anything similar?

Anyway, I ventured out for another play at around 22:30 this
evening, only to find that the primary and secondary mirrors were
so covered in condensation that any observation was impossible.
I'd left the scope outside to gain equilibrium since about 7PM.
Perhaps I should now start saving up for a "dew heater"!

So all in all, a beautiful moon observed, but a frustrating first
weekend with my new newt. Even so, to a total telescope newbie
like me even a brief look at that hazy moon through my 20mm
Moonfish EP was well worth the downers.

Best,
Dan

On Sun, 05 Sep 2004 00:04:10 +0100, Dan wrote:

Anyway, I ventured out for another play at around 22:30 this
evening, only to find that the primary and secondary mirrors were
so covered in condensation that any observation was impossible.
I'd left the scope outside to gain equilibrium since about 7PM.
Perhaps I should now start saving up for a "dew heater"!

There was a lot of moisture about this evening, down our way anyway!
After a beautiful Summer's day with really clear blue skies, it was
somewhat frustrating to find things curtailed by dripping scopes. I
too set up at 7pm BST. I didn't go out to start observing until 22:30
BST only to find water covering everything. Just managed to get
tonight's Moon shot (yep - I'm going for the set ;-) ) before the OG
dewed over.

So all in all, a beautiful moon observed, but a frustrating first
weekend with my new newt. Even so, to a total telescope newbie
like me even a brief look at that hazy moon through my 20mm
Moonfish EP was well worth the downers.

You have session like that, don't let it get the better of you.
You'll have perfect nights with now dew and no wind fouling things up,
but your equipment will react against you. However, the good nights
when things do gel, far outweight the poor ones. Just wait and see...


--
Pete Lawrence
http://www.pbl33.co.uk
Most recent images http://www.pbl33.fast24.co.uk/recent_images.html

Pete Lawrence wrote:

There was a lot of moisture about this evening, down our way anyway!
After a beautiful Summer's day with really clear blue skies, it was
somewhat frustrating to find things curtailed by dripping scopes. I
too set up at 7pm BST. I didn't go out to start observing until 22:30
BST only to find water covering everything. Just managed to get
tonight's Moon shot (yep - I'm going for the set ;-) ) before the OG
dewed over.

Tell me about it. I put the scope out about 10, went out about 10.45
and the tube was soaking. I persevered for an hour or so till my
(cheap and crap) finder dewed up *inside*. I couldn't even see Deneb
through the damn thing. The skies were as steady as I've seen them for
a while too.

I'm thinking of using a pound or so of thermite on my finder as a dew
heater...


Tim
--
Guns Don’t Kill People, Rappers Do.

"Tim Auton" wrote in message
...
Pete Lawrence wrote:
There was a lot of moisture about this evening, down our way anyway!
After a beautiful Summer's day with really clear blue skies, it was
somewhat frustrating to find things curtailed by dripping scopes. I
too set up at 7pm BST. I didn't go out to start observing until 22:30
BST only to find water covering everything. Just managed to get
tonight's Moon shot (yep - I'm going for the set ;-) ) before the OG
dewed over.
Tell me about it. I put the scope out about 10, went out about 10.45
and the tube was soaking. I persevered for an hour or so till my
(cheap and crap) finder dewed up *inside*. I couldn't even see Deneb
through the damn thing. The skies were as steady as I've seen them for
a while too.

I had heard that seeing conditions are generally ideal when there's a mist
about. Having read your experiences though, I'm glad I didn't try it.
Grim

On Sat, 04 Sep 2004 10:12:33 +0100, Pete Lawrence
wrote:

A few pictures from last night...

--
Pete

Nice ones Pete g. Will you be ungrading to the new Canon 20D 8mb
pixel digital camera. Was just about to order 300D or 10D but will
wait for new one! When will it stop! Makes Nikon D70 [6mb] look a
bit lameg.

In article , Dan wrote:

It turns out that the controller doesn't seem to be sending the
tracking signal to the Dec. motor (but does work on activating 2X
or 8X speed). Has anyone here experienced anything similar?

I might be misunderstanding something here, but surely the dec. motor
should be stationary during normal tracking. If the mount is correctly
aligned stars are tracked by the RA axis only.
--
Jim Easterbrook http://astro.jim-easterbrook.me.uk/
N51.36 W0.25

On Sun, 05 Sep 2004 08:22:00 GMT, (Maurice Gavin)
wrote:

Nice ones Pete g. Will you be ungrading to the new Canon 20D 8mb
pixel digital camera. Was just about to order 300D or 10D but will
wait for new one! When will it stop! Makes Nikon D70 [6mb] look a
bit lameg.

Hi Maurice. I think I'll wait to see what the 20D can really produce
before making a decision on that one. I think the biggest advantage of
the 20D may be in the noise area rather than the increased resolution.
--
Pete Lawrence
http://www.pbl33.co.uk
Most recent images http://www.pbl33.fast24.co.uk/recent_images.html

Jim Easterbrook wrote:

I might be misunderstanding something here, but surely the dec. motor
should be stationary during normal tracking. If the mount is correctly
aligned stars are tracked by the RA axis only.

Thanks Jim, my error. You're not misunderstanding; I meant to say
RA motor, but had Dec. stuck in my mind for some reason (probably
resulting from an afternoon of reading articles and searching
forums for remedies, which fried my brain!).

I removed the stepper motor covers to examine for a mechanical
faults, and discovered that the brass teeth were intermittently
failing to mesh. After adjustment of the motor position it seems
to be fine now, although I haven't yet tested the accuracy of the
tracking.

Apologies for the daft error,

Dan