Went observing with F.S. Took some pictures of Orion nebula, the setting moon, Andromeda, the Pleiades, Jupiter, the Hyades, all using the FH80/400. As usual, focusing is an issue. I'm really considering finding some used EOS digital back with LiveView feature (i.e. anything after my own 400D).

First time since january 2012 that I went for the usual AAL public meeting (1st saturday of the month). This time, I came with EQ6 and N200/1000, which got used quite a bit for the public - Orion, Jupiter, Andromeda etc., i.e. the usual suspects. No luck though with taking pictures e.g. after departure of the public: clouds came up just as most people got cold and left.

First time in a long while that there's a clear evening. Except for a half moon in the middle of Taurus, with Aldebaran to its left and Jupiter to its right, the Pleiades a bit further right. Nice to see, rather impossible to properly make a picture of.

Oh well, so I took the FH80/400 for a visual tour of interesting objects in the vincinity. i.e. in Monoceros: Christmas Tree cluster (NGC2264), Rosetta Nebula (NGC2244), in Gemini: M35, in Cancer: M44 (Praesepe), tried for M36/M38 in Auriga (no success though), in Orion: trapezium, / M42. I also used the binoculars on the Pleiades.

Next time I'll make sure to go out of town again, there's really a lot of light pollution. Also, long live the Newton (as compared to the FH)…

1st saturday of the month, decent sky - AAL meeting! There was quite some public present. One colleague has brought his 18“ horseshoe-mount “Dobson”, which gives really bright views compared to my own equipment. Got to see Jupiter's red “eye”, which also showed how quickly Jupiter rotates! Misc “targets”, hardly any photography done due to public.

Still decent sky, even if there was some humidity and freezing temperatures - the tube certainly looked icy at the end of the session. This time, with F.S., we went again to “Schweecherdall”, i.e. relatively dark sky. Worked on proper alignment of the mount, proper focussing, finally thought of switching to RAW images, and took series of the Orion nebula, Horsehead nebula, Flame nebula, the Pleiades.

The following days, lots of playing around with Regim, AstroImageJ, RawTherapee, GIMP to make the most of these pictures, with nice enough results.

Went to “Schweecherdall” again, F.S. came too a bit later. Tried to see the Panstarrs comet, but no real success there (possible match on one of my pics, but really not sure). Had good success in focusing using the Scheiner mask, took series of the Orion nebula, flame + horsehead nebulas, Praesepe (M44), the Pleiades (M45) - including some dark frames.

I did more fiddling with post-processing. Regim is getting routine, but for using its output I turned to AstroImageJ (AIJ) (which does automatically provide fair results, but certainly not optimal) and RawTherapee (RT) (which allows for a lot of processing, but is pretty manual). I finally got fairly good results using RT.

One thing - despite relatively long total exposure for the horsehead nebula, it's still heavy processing to even identify it as such. I wonder if replacement of the IR filter of the DSLR isn't a real necessity to get decent results.

Observation time with F.S. at Schweecherdall, no moon, windy and icy cold. Good conditions for Deep Sky, but we started off hunting for the Panstarrs comet - which after a long search, F.S. ended up finding a bit below the Andromeda galaxy. Besides that, I went for the crab nebula, tried for the Leo triplet, and F.S. nicely oriented me to the Whirlpool galaxy (M51). In the end, the Panstarrs and Whirlpool pictures got quite good, the crab nebula was totally unfocused. Andromeda was simply too low over the horizon to be interesting. Had I had a chance, I'd have pictured Panstarrs and Andromeda together, but alas…

At last, spring has arrived. After a sunny day, with a first BBQ for the season, and the first sunburn at that, a less cold observation evening. While it's at least 21:30 before the sky's more or less dark enough, and despite a ~ quarter moon, there were nice conditions to check out some deep sky objects near zenith, away from the moon: the Leo triplet region (M65, M66) and the Whirlpool galaxy (M51). I ended up finding the M51 on my own, as well as M65/M66 - but I unfortunately missed NGC 3628 by a very small angle…

Also, Jupiter and the Moon got quite close (approx. 1°). I also took wide-angle pictures to north with Perseus (well, the part of it above the horizon anyway), Cassiopeia and Cepheus; it turned out that even the double cluster was visible there.

While I didn't get to observe yesterday, tonight was to be used, as rainy weather is to come from tomorrow on. Full moon though, so no use in going to a really dark place → the usual in Limpach.

I started off testing my (bought used) Sigma 400mm on the full moon with the (also bought used) 500D, so I could test the LiveView feature. Boy, LiveView does help! Still, that lens still gives me (much) less than sharp results. Next test, FH80/400 with the 500D - and the difference is very noticable, at the same focal length and only little difference in aperture (f/5.6 for the Sigma vs f/5 for the FH80/400). Finally, test on the Newton - a whole different world of sharpness, even without the advantage of the focal length (1000mm)!

Lucky me - as I was taking pictures of the moon, I noticed the moon seemingly “bitten” - it was a partial eclipse, for which I had missed the announcements.

I then turned to Jupiter, for which I really need to try something else to picture it, 1000mm prime focus is way too little, I'll have to get a decent Barlow lens at the very least. Same goes for Saturn, which I watched a bit later (was maybe a couple degrees from the full moon).

I did try for the Leo triplet, but didn't quite manage locating the right place - it was just too bright with the full moon relatively close. Same even for Praesepe (ok, my lack of perseverance certainly didn't help).

With a bit more perseverance, I located M51 (Whirlpool galaxy), and went on taking a series of pictures of that, just so I could compare with the results from a dark night. Short version: yes, a darker sky helps a lot.

Another very interesting result: as long as there's a halfway decent star around, LiveView will help with proper focusing, so you can even look for your target using whatever eyepiece you want, and switch to the camera, without reorienting the 'scope to something bright, fiddling with focusing, and finding your target again using only the viewfinder. Just how did I survive without LiveView?

AAL meeting at the Limpach site. Some people there, but less public than previous time. Conditions: pretty high humidity, partial cover of wispy clouds. Definitely suboptimal, but things got a bit better later in the night. I got to take pictures of the Leo triplet, the Whirlpool galaxy. Then came M13 in Hercules - using F.S.'s barlow lens via a series of adapters! That attempt showed that LiveView has its limits: you still need a pretty bright object to see and focus on, before turning to the object of interest. Of course, that barlow lens turns my 1000mm f/5 Newton into a 2000mm f/10, which is obviously much darker, and which needs to be oriented much more accurately.

Having a look at the pictures, turns out I still didn't correctly focus for the Leo triplet, I'll have to retry. Using the barlow lens, I tried for the whirlpool galaxy first - but the results were so dark I didn't recognize it on the Canon screen - but it actually was there, I'd have had to take longer (or at higher ISO) exposures. There were also a couple of pictures from Saturn, but also too dark, no details visible.

As the construct for using the barlow was pretty different from what I tried so far, I'll have to try again taking pictures through one or the other eyepiece - maybe sth. will be doable for bright objects such as planets…

It feels like ages that there hasn't been decent weather for observing. Today, I got the little 'scope out to have a look at the sun, in between clouds. Me and my daughter got a few looks at sunspots, but when I was about to take a couple of pictures, more clouds came up and didn't go away, being even replaced by showers.

I then took the equipement for a few trials:

• both scopes on the EQ6 simultaneously (the FH80/400 on the couterweight rod), which is pretty easy - just unlock the rod to get it essentially parallel to the main scope, even if you don't have perfect alignment the other way - after all, it will be used for guiding, so the essential thing is to get some bright star into view, even if that's not in the exact direction of the main scope.
• check whether I'd be able to find a combination of adapters so I could take photographies not in prime focus only, but also through an eyepiece. After many attempts, I found a working combination mainly for the (pretty small) 10mm eyepiece, which also works for the (larger) 25mm eyepiece, with a bit of good will. No dice though for the huge 5mm HR planetary. The field of depth with an eyepiece is extremely small though, it may be pretty tough to use that on the night sky - but it will have to be tried, of course. The question then will be how much darker the image will appear, and what that means for LiveView, exposure times, tracking…

First evening observation session in a while. Went to Limpach with F.S. After sunset, saw the get-together of Mercury, Venus and Jupiter. Fine view of Saturn with rings and moons. Leo triplet, M13, Ring Nebula, Moonrise were the targets of the evening. Even tried taking some pictures through the 10mm eye-piece with Saturn and the moon, no chance though to accurately target the ring nebula that way - it's about 200x magnification.

Went to Ielwen with F.S. for a change. Weather was fine during the day, but there were high clouds in the evening. After sunset, got to see Mercury and Venus in the west, bad seeing though - no chance of seeing e.g. the phase of Venus. After a few looks at Saturn, Ring Nebula and Albireo, we almost broke off observing due to the high clouds. It cleared up though, and we went for the Sombrero galaxy (M104 near Corvus, but belonging to Virgo) - we found it and took pictures. After that, we targeted the Whirlpool galaxy. I finally went for the Bode and Cigar galaxies, and actually found them - next time, there'll be a series of pictures to take!

After missing out on a couple of nice evenings (had to get up for work the other mornings), finally took the opportunity of the start of the weekend to go to Ielwen with quite good conditions (suboptimal seeing after sunset, it got a bit humid later). Venus had already set when I got the N200/1000 ready, so I went for Saturn - taking several shots by DSLR through the 10mm eyepiece. Still no luck with that combination for the Ring nebula (Lyra) though, so I went for the classic prime focus. Next target Albireo (Cygnus). I then went for the region of Deneb (Cygnus), Bode & Cigar galaxies (Ursa Major), Dumbbell nebula (Vulpecula), M71 (Sagitta), the Leo triplet, a single shot of Antares (Scorpius), M4 (Scorpius). I then switched to the FH80/400 for the region of the North America nebula (near Deneb, Cygnus), and the region of the Whirlpool galaxy (Ursa Major).

This session was my first ever on certain targets, e.g. Dumbbell nebula, M71, M4, or first time I tried for a decent picture (Body & Cigar galaxies), and I'm pretty happy with the results, if I dare say so myself.

Finally got around to go observing, Ielwen again. There'd been a long while of bad conditions, then a few days off because of the marriage. While setting up, Venus was visible above the horizon. After finally being set up, while the sky was still too bright for DSOs, I went for Saturn, visually. When things got dark enough, I went for the ring nebula and whirlpool galaxies, taking pictures through the new Barlow lens. It turns out you lose a lot of light, and so have to take much longer exposures, at higher ISO - which in turn gets you issues with noise and precision of the tracking/guiding. I didn't yet have any luck with the O3 filter, but I'll have to try again, taking more time. I also went for other classics such as Bode&Cigar galaxies, the Andromeda galaxy. Rather late, Sagittarius became visible through the light pollution in the south, and so I tried finding interesting objects there. Due to that light pollution, not much luck for precision finding, but I did end up on some star cluster, which I also took pictures of - but no idea which one that was (maybe M18 or M25).

Plans for next time: use the FH80/400 for a really long series of pictures around Cygnus (North America nebula, region of Sadr), then of the Andromeda galaxy. I guess then, no point in taking the Newton, but I'll have to take the binoculars to pass the time during the longer exposures. I seriously wonder if I shouldn't get a smaller Dobson (sth like the Skywatcher Heritage 130) for visual observation during the +- automatic foto series.

So as to try a different site, I went observing at Ehnen, in the vineyards. My idea was that this is away from lights, and would rid me of Luxembourg city's skyglow (at least when not looking to west-north-west). Well, I hadn't counted on the lights of Nittel on the german side of the Mosel, not with the huge amounts of humidity rising from the river, and the resulting skyglow due south. No chance at all of seeing Sagittarius, even Scorpius was hard to see.

Anyway, zenith was clear enough, and I went for a long series of the north america nebula and the nebulosity around Sadr. The FH was used as guide scope, the pictures were taken using the 55-200mm tele lens at 200mm, on the counterweight bar. Later I went for the pinwheel galaxy and M13.

Note to self: some automatic way of taking a long series of long-duration exposures would be very useful.

This evening was at the usual Ielwen site with F.S. I tried for the Cirrus nebula, but no luck there. Then I went for the Dumbbell nebula, tried for the Magic Carpet nebula (no luck), then NGC6939 in Cepheus - and even had half of NGC6946 on the picture. Not much luck with the Cat's Eye nebula, I'll have to practice finding it before taking a series of pictures via Barlow lens.

Session at Ielwen dedicated to Sagittarius and friends, i.e. Lagoon and Triffid nebulas, small Sagittarius Cloud, Swan nebula, Eagle nebula, Wild Duck cluster (Scutum).

While on holidays up on a mountain (ok, somewhere around 1200-1300m height), I couldn't take any equipment along… except for the normal photographic stuff and the binoculars. There were 3 observable nights: the first one when we arrived, I was so tired I just fell into bed and slept. The second one was also our second night there, I had a look at the stars from the balcony. Wow. I got to see Sagittarius more clearly over the lighted hotel entrance, including nebulosity around Lagoon etc., than I ever did from Luxembourg. Not to mention Scorpius, Bootes, Hercules etc. Only negative was the huge amount of airplanes, maybe from the Basel-Mulhouse and Zurich airports. The third observable night was the last night of our stay, I went out and a bit up the way to the Feldberg top, just so as to get out of the lights from the hotel. I wasn't even across the road when I realised just how well you could see the milky way, not just the bright band itself, but also the dark bands in the middle of it! I took some pictures, but on a small photo mount and short exposures you can't expect miracles. So I went back to the binoculars and checked out quite some classic objects which require little magnification. One highlight certainly was the Andromeda galaxy, which showed nebulosity much further than what I'm used to from Luxembourg.

Session at Ielwen, F.S. came along.

With the holiday 2013-08-15, I finally got around to testing the SynGuider - should've studied the manual in more detail though, as I haven't been too successful. I've turned out a couple of 10-minutes exposures without guiding, showing the gear error pretty nicely, but the supposedly guided 10-minutes-exposure shows the stars as double. It may be a mechanical issue, as the thing for fixing the guiding scope to the counterweight bar isn't entirely stable.

When fed up with those tests, I turned to the dumbbell nebula… only to not find it! It turned out (most of) my optics had misted over, yippie. After cleaning up and fitting the dewcap, finally found the dumbbell nebula. Ok, taking pictures… to find them rather dark. Now what? Well, clouds were coming up, and the pictures got taken through them… ok. not. Finally settled on targetting Andromeda, after that the Triangulum galaxy. Real late I got to see the Pleiades, barely over the horizon.

Bad conditions: sth. like 7/8th of moon, quite some humidity in the air, i.e. very bright sky. I still tried using the SynGuider, without much success. I've since read about too high noise settings by default, so I'll make sure to lower that for the next try. Otherwise I took some pictures despite the bad conditions, including some of Nova Delphini, UMa, Draco/UMi, Sag/Del, Sadr, Whirlpool and Pinwheel galaxies, the moon. Some of those were obviously not taken through the telescope, but with the simple foto tripod and lens. As often, I've had some issues with proper focusing.

Solved is the problem of less-than-stable mounting of the guiding scope on the counterweight bar, my contraption with 0.8mm aluminium sheet folded around a self-lathed piece of wood of the same diameter as the counterweight bar is actually good enough.

Limpach site.

Dumbbell nebula, Eagle nebula, Lagoon nebula, M22, Pinwheel galaxy, Swan nebula, Triffid nebula, picture of Vega (test of SynGuider).

Limpach site.

Andromeda (55-200mm photo lens), Cassiopeia (18-55 photo lens), Cygnus (18-55 photo lens), Lyra (photo lens), Perseus (unfocused), Sadr region (bad quality through 400mm Sigma lens), Sagittarius (huge issues with having taken the horizon into the picture, lots of humidity above the horizon).

Due to bad contact around the electrical plug, I've been looking into modifying my EQ6 power supply. I've selected a DIN 240° plug, screw-on, 5-pin (as available in the shop), to fit to the EQ6 in parallel to the existing plug. As my soldering competences are pretty limited, in the end I only did the soldering of the cables on the DIN plug side, while a colleague at the office did the soldering on the board. Tests with the board alone seemed ok.

First observation evening in a long while. Turns out stars have wandered about quite a bit since the last time - all of Perseus is visible, most parts of Taurus, most if not all of Auriga. Andromeda and Pegasus are pretty high in the sky, while Cygnus and Lyra have wandered to the east. It's also the first try of the EQ6 after having soldered on the new power supply socket. As I don't have the cable to fit just yet, I still have to use the original cable, which has an ever-growing problem of making a bad contact (cable seems broken just at the plug). I have to fiddle with it to get contact even to light the polar finder, when I suddenly hear a noise like a tire losing air. Checking, I realize the noise is coming from the EQ6… and there's smoke coming out! So I rapidly disconnect it, and just use the EQ6 manually (which it definitely isn't made for, no fun!). Unsurprisingly, my mood is down, I don't even find the motivation to take a long exposure of an electric fence generating nice big sparks in the evening humidity/fog.

Finally viewable weather conditions again, despite a 3/4th moon. It's getting pretty cold, around 0°C, and somewhat humid. Due to my EQ6 being out of service, I had to use my FH80/400 on EQ1 visually. The Pleiades are pretty nice to see despite the sub-optimal conditions. There's no point in even trying for faint objects. An interesting object was what I first took for an airplane, in the north-east just above the horizon - but which turned out to be Jupiter! Seeing was pretty bad, but hey! I tried for the Ring Nebula, which confirmed there was no point to even try. Even M13 looked very disappointing. No chance to find something like the Whirlpool galaxy. I turned over the EQ6 to F.S., which wants to try replacing the blown electrolyte condensator. We'll see if the board is saveable, or whether I'll have to replace it (cost: 128 EUR plus shipping). I sure hope the damn thing will be saveable, or I'll have to bite that sour apple, as the germans say.

F.S. has been able to fix my EQ6, in the end what happened was that a splash of soldering tin had caused a short - after cleaning that away, and replacing the blown elco plus another one that had suffered, the electronics worked again. F.S. even took the initiative of “optimizing” the EQ6, i.e. taking most of it apart, re-greasing it properly, fine-tuning the alignment of parts so as to minimize vibrations etc., also as practice for doing it on his own, which he recently got.

It turned out the sky was - unexpectedly - pretty good, and so we both went observing. I started out on the EQ1 FH80/400, but put it away when I knew F.S. was coming too - with my freshly tuned EQ6. Good thing I had all the other equipment along, i.e. the N200/1000, counterweights etc. Already during setup, I noticed how much better than before the EQ6 movements felt, everything much smoother. F.S. also showed me about using the scala on the polar finder - once you know it, it's pretty easy to get right, and certainly much more precise that going for the approximative positions of Cassiopeia or Ursa Major. I went straight for taking pictures of an object I so far didn't get to, the Crab nebula. Later, I tried for the Flame and Horsehead nebulas. When taking a first picture of the great Orion nebula, I noticed I only got dashes instead of points for the stars - there was simply too much (very cold feeling) wind. So, we decided to pack up and go home to some heat.

A lucky break in the clouds, early evening, allowed for a little experimenting from the home garden. Obvious issue: it's essentially in town, so no miracles. I ended up trying for the Pleiades, the southern part of Orion, the region between Cassiopeia and Perseus all using my 55-200mm photo lens, and then for fun Jupiter (HDR) and the Pleiades using the FH80/400.