Ielwen, windy - Canon straight on EQ6. Clouds came up fast, had to pack up soon.

Some pictures of the Sun.

Clear sky in the evening but almost half moon, so I went out to Limpach. As there was some wind when I started to set up, I put on the ED80 rather than the Newton. While doing the 3-star alignment for the GoTo, I noticed that clouds were coming up… and they continued passing for the rest of the session. I did target Orion, the rosetta nebula and M101, but with the clouds passing, could do nothing properly, except maybe for the moon. Did I mention it was real cold?

Clear sky this morning, so I went out somewhere between 6:30 and 7:00 to see the alignment of naked-eye visible planets that was announced: Mercury, Venus, Saturn, Mars, Jupiter… which I saw with the exception of Mercury, which was either still not up, or else drowned in the city lights. Inspection of the photographs may show it though.

Misc targets around Orion, from my back yard. 450Da on StarAdventurer, misc lenses.

Ielwen / Newton. 450Da Owl nebula, needle galaxy. 500D misc targets.

On the way back from a gaming evening with friends, I found the sky had cleared up, and so I stopped out of town for a few quick pics using the StarAdventurer: Gemini and surroundings, Leo, Auriga, Beehive, tried for the xmas tree, central part of Auriga.

Clear skies, saturday, relatively small moon… off to Ielwen! Arrived there, I immediately found it to be rather windy, so I opted for the ED80 instead of the Newton. As I wanted to concentrate on guiding, I went for the Syntrek rather than the GOTO. Setting up the GOTO according to the Quick Guide went fine. Focussing using the Bathinov mask was very efficient too, and quite obviously more precise than only live view.

I went for the by now rather low Orion, i.e. Orion's sword. After a series of 5-minutes pictures at ISO 400, some clouds came up. The center of M42 was burnt out on these pics, so when it cleared up some, I did another series of 1-minute pictures. Since then more clouds came up and Orion was blocked from view, I couldn't switch to the Flame nebula and Horsehead as I intended, so I opted to the currently-free-of-clouds Leo, in particular the Leo triplet. As this region is rather darker than Orion's sword, I went for full 10 minutes per picture - three of those, before again clouds came in the way. I went on shooting the Whirlpool galaxy, this time at ISO1600 with 2 minutes per picture. In between those different targets, I also took a few shots of the moon, which turned out remarkably sharp. Conclusion: guiding using the MGEN-II is rather uncomplicated, and I won't go without it in the future. The ability to go with long exposures and low ISO is really worth the effort, the difference is obvious in the results.

Using the StarAdventurer with the unmodded 500D and the 200mm lens on a number of different targets, I came to the conclusion that there's no point in using this combination without mirror lockup. Using a Bathinov mask here also makes for sharper images than with live view only. Targets included Whirlpool, Virgo cluster, Leo triplet, the other Leo triplet, Auriga Central, the Rosetta nebula, the Moon, surroundings in the dark.

Clear sky again, but workday the day after… so I set up in the back yard. Newton on EQ6, plus MGEN. Conclusion there: first target the telescope properly, and only then configure the guiding - otherwise, good luck finding a guiding star. I shot the Owl nebula and Surfboard galaxy in Ursa Major, but with a slightly hazy sky and city lights, I couldn't go over 3 minutes per picture at ISO 400. I did run a series of 1 hour total, plus dark, flat and bias frames.

Using the StarAdventurer and the 200mm lens, I went for the foot of the right twin, i.e. the region of M35 - and the jellyfish nebula IC 444, but with no expectations of actually getting that nebula on the picture, with the bad conditions of city lights, 1/3 moon in close Taurus, and using the non-modded 500D. Here, I went with pictures of 30s at ISO 800 at f/4, plus dark, flat and bias frames.

More or less as expected, the M97/108 picture has proven rather sharper than my previous attempt, but suffered from being taken from the city, and having received too little exposure. The M35 picture is rather on the ok side, the jellyfish nebula can even barely be identified.

Considering the rather clear sky and the 2/3 moon, I went to Limpach. When arriving, there wasn't much wind, so I went for the Newton.

Setting up at first was as usual, but while handling the Newton I found I hadn't tightened the clamps of the tripod properly, so I'd lost the proper levelling and north alignment - a mistake to avoid in the future. Considering the bright moon and the somewhat misty sky, I couldn't count on a proper view through the finder to identify my targets, so I preferred using not only the guiding, but the GoTo too. The 3-star alignment went properly, and turned out precise enough for the field of view of the Newton.

I started on a series of the Bode and Cigar galaxies (M81 and M82), with 5-minute exposures at ISO400 - I couldn't go higher with the moon and misty sky. While running the series, some wind came up, and thus made me doubt the results.

After that hour-long series, I changed targets to the needle galaxy. As it turned out, I must have put too much pressure on the camera when verifying the proper targeting, thereby losing the focus - which I only noticed after that little series. I re-focused and took single shots of the black eye and sunflower galaxies, before packing up.

In parallel, I took some pictures of the landscape, of the moon, of a passing airplane (at ISO6400), and a little series of the needle galaxy region (using the 200mm lens).

Conclusion: properly tighten clamps in the future, GoTo + Guiding are very promising for future dark and clear nights. Also, the batteries for my cameras are losing charge rather quickly - either due to the cold or to their age (or both), but I'll certainly want to hook the camera up to the 12V battery of rather larger capacity.

For a change, I took a few pictures of the sun, using the Newton.

Having recently acquired a second used EOS 450D, I took the time today to implement the astro-modification according to Gary Honis' guide, not replacing the standard filter. This time around, I was alone to do the mod, and I managed to extract the original filter in one piece. I had some trouble reconnecting the connector for the card reader, and on first attempt I also hadn't properly seated the connector of the camera back - this showed in certain functions not working, resp. the card not being recognized as in place. On the second try, things went smoothly, so now I have a second working astro-modded DSLR.

This same evening, I went to the Ielwen site. Due to works, again many drivers illegally took to the small roads and did quite disturb my endeavors. As there wasn't much wind, I set up the Newton, with guiding, and on impulse including GoTo. The GoTo part ended up working way better than on previous tries. I was less lucky with the guiding part though - while the first 10-minutes picture was fine, subsequent ones showed trails (target was M106). I had things set up for a whole 2h of pictures (12x 10min), but as it turned out, some of the later pictures also suffered from the secondary mirror misting over.

Using the StarAdventurer mount, I tested the newly modified EOS450Da, with the 200mm lens. Apparently some particles must remain present on the sensor, which I'll have to clean out - hopefully not needing to take the body apart again. Targets were, amongst others, Auriga central, M35 and jellyfish nebula, Praesepe, the Virgo Cluster (Markarian's Chain in particular).

On this day, I've done some more tinkering, this time making a battery dummy for the Canon EOS 450D, using the oldest accumulator at hand (already bloated), a voltage converter, and some cabling, the purpose being to be able to connect it straight to my 12V source. The voltage converter was purchased via amazon, along with a case. The soldering of the cabling to the camera-side connector was the finest I've done so far (which really isn't saying much).

A second tinkering was to take my first 450Da apart again to clean the sensor assembly. As it turned out, I indeed had a mote in between the sensor and filter. This time, I did have to fight some screws on opening the body, but no trouble whatsoever with reassembly.

This day, I took apart my second 450Da for cleaning the sensor assembly. No trouble whatsoever. My thanks go to Gary Honis for his wonderful guide.

Some pictures of the Sun.

Clear sky was announced. F.S. wanted to visually observe from Limpach with a colleague, so I joined them.

Due to the windy previsions, I went with the ED80. Electrics were trouble though, causing me to go without guiding and classic two-minute exposures at ISO1600. Also, there would be some time invested in re-doing the whole electrical stuff in the following couple of weeks.

For this evening, I ended up with 2h worth of the Virgo Cluster using the ED80. Added to that some targets using the StarAdventurer and different lenses: Jupiter and Leo hind leg, Leo hind leg, Needle galaxy region, M13, M101, landscape pics, Mars and Saturn, Leo and Jupiter.

Mercury Transit past the Sun! This happened during the afternoon, but I had to be at work. So I took off as soon as possible, did an unavoidable errand, and finally got to set up the Newton. I was just in time to get a few shots of Mercury in front of the Sun, but quickly clouds came up and wouldn't clear out. At least, I did get those few shots - those including not just Mercury and sunspots but clouds too being even more interesting.

Observation session of AAL at Limpach. Some pics of Ring nebula, Whirlpool nebula, Needle galaxy.

A little sun using the FH80 and white light filter.

In the fields near Bourglinster, test of the ED80. Targets included Sadr, Deneb, the western veil nebula. Using the 500D on the SA, different very wide fields of the milky way and wide fields of Cassiopeia and the Coathanger.

After quite a while without observing, I just had to use this evening despite the very present moon. After taking pictures of the fireworks for Luxembourg's national holiday, I drove to Limpach and set up the Newton, pointing it to the dumbbell nebula. Unfortunately, besides the very present moon, another factor was quite some humidity - enough to cause the secondary mirror to fog over after approx. 1/2h already. This in turn meant darks only, no flats. Add in that I didn't bother with guiding, results won't be interesting.

The sky appeared clear enough, so I packed the gear… to find while driving off that clouds belonging to a front passing over Belgium towards Germany were visible in the northwest. That decided me to go east, to the Donatuskapell between Beidweiler and Eschweiler. Arriving there, more clouds had assembled, so I didn't bother setting up a scope. I did picture the radio antennas from Junglinster and Beidweiler, and found I could see echoes of lightning flashes in the north. I ended up driving to Altlinster to better see that lightning, and to take a series of pictures thereof. Fun fact: there were glowworms around, shining greenishly.

First saturday of the month, so… AAL meeting. Officially it's at 21:00 at Dippach-Gare, but I went straight to the observation site for 22:00… and was alone. Ok, so the weather wasn't perfect, there were passing clouds. According to 7timer, it should clear up, and it did somewhat. To the south, Scorpius was visible, including Saturn and Mars, to the West, Jupiter was still there, Lyra and Cygnus, Cassiopeia etc. were plain to see. With those clouds though, no luck with Sagittarius and many other constellations. Those mentioned were also in time visited by clouds. Through Scorpius, a beamer ruined the view - gratuitious light pollution at it's best (or rather, worst). I set up the ED80 with tracking only, no GoTo, to picture the firebird (part of the Cirrus nebula). I used the StarAdventurer with the 50mm lens on some targets (a few single shots), then the 200mm lens for all of the Cirrus nebula. Around 01:00 the cloud cover mostly closed up again, so I packed the gear.

Yay, another saturday evening with clear skies announced! In the early evening, there were still some clouds, but it did look promising. I went to Ielwen alone.

The Newton got setup with all bells and whistles, i.e. including GoTo and Guiding. As it was still more or less bright when I started, I opted for a target rather high in the darker (eastern) part of sky - M27 the dumbbell nebula - and stayed on it for the rest of the session, even after the Milky Way became visible, including Sagittarius.

In parallel, the StarAdventurer was put to work with different lenses, starting with the 200mm, later the 50mm, then the 10-18mm, and back to the 200mm. While at first everything went smoothly, I later became aware of tracking issues. It finally turned out not to be the alignment being whacked out, but the batteries running out of juice. After replacing them, things were fine again, so I ran another short series of Lagoon & Trifid nebulas, and took a few single shots of different other objects. Targets were the Cirrus nebula, Lagoon and Trifid nebulas, Antares region, the Moon (setting), Scorpius, the Milky Way (near Sagittarius, around the Coathanger, Deneb/Sadr, Cassiopeia, between Cas and Deneb), some landscape plus Milky Way pictures, Swan and Eagle nebulas, Andromeda galaxy, Perseus center.

Being on holidays on Tenerife - probably the best site for astronomy in Europe - for a week, I used the opportunity to rent a car and drive up to El Teide for this one night. I had brought the Star Adventurer along, one of the 450Da bodys, as well as the 50mm and 200mm lenses. I finally set up at a viewing spot near rock formations right across from the Parador. After 22h Polaris was visible above El Teide, and Sagittarius and all of Scorpius showed themselves above the southern crater rim. Of course there was a “but”: not only did the still almost full moon show up only a bit later, it also made itself quite noticable before due to loads of sahara sand being blown over. Doing anything around Cygnus or Aquila was hopeless. I concentrated on objects I don't get to see or properly do from home, i.e. Ptolemy cluster, Scorpius' tail, the classic Rho Ophiuci (and Antares) region. Of course, I also did a number of shots of the landscape with stars. Not much luck doing the Milky Way though due to too much moon and dust.

Funny: at the same spot I found a group who had set up a number of scopes. It turned out to be the “Teide by Night” tour, which we (my family) hadn't booked as it would have gotten too late for the kids). I'm quite sure even my wife would've had fun there. During pauses I had a nice discussion with the tour leader, we showed each other self-made astro pictures - I even got to enrich the tour with some of my own pictures.

Back home after the holiday, I used a bit of free time to set up the Newton and point it at the sun, using the baader white light filter - no sun spots at all, only some structure recognizable near an edge. It was essentially impossible to properly focus and find that using the DSLR.

First saturday of the month, usually that means AAL meeting. But, this time I was bound by a family event and missed that. Instead, when getting home past 22h, I simply set up in the back yard - NEQ6 + ED80 + MGEN. There was hardly any humidity around (except for a few clouds during setup), and no moon. Anyway, being in town, I chose targets around zenith. I ended up with a series of 12 5-minute exposures at ISO800 for the Sadr region, followed by 6 more of the elephant's trunk region. During the series, I enjoyed my cat's company, no parallel exposures using the mobile equipment. I ended up with a single 5-min shot (with guiding) somewhere not far from the bubble nebula (missed that though), and another 3-min shot (no guiding) of Andromeda, this one hindered by light pollution.

Perseides event at Beidweiler. Took series of wide-angle pictures of the Milky Way, and misc single shots around.

Special of the evening: the alignment of Saturn, Mars and Antares. I went up the road to the cemetary with the StarAdventurer and took some pictures. The sky must have been really clear, as I could almost distinguish the milky way, despite being in Luxembourg town, and to boot, with the Schueberfouer going!

Friday night, still clear, I just had to go to Ielwen for a session. I set up the Newton with GoTo and guiding, with the goto working quite perfectly - it was spot on e.g. for the ring nebula, and moving to my target of the evening, NGC 7331 with the deer lick group and Stephan's quintett was flawless. I activated the MGEN, tried 5-minute exposures… only to find afterward that there must have been some slippage somewhere, as I had wobbly tracks in every single picture. Going to 3 minutes per picture didn't really improve things, going without guiding neither… and 2 minutes didn't really cut it either.

In parallel, I also had trouble with the 450Da, where I tried using the L-rail with the 200mm lens - combination which remains unstable, so I went back to my routine setup. With the 50mm and 135mm lenses, I couldn't quite focus to infinity - I still wonder if that was due to the heat or to the sensor position. No such troubles with the unmodified 500D though, so maybe the reason is indeed the mod. I'll have to compare the 3 bodies (2x 450Da and 500D).

All in all, it has been a rather frustrating evening.

Friday night, clear skies, half moon… off to Ielwen. I wanted to try the deer lick cluster + Stephans quintett again. EQ6, Newton, guiding… turned out to have more or less the same issues as last time, but with less than perfect goto alignement added. I rather quickly took out the entire guiding part and tried with tracking alone - 4 minutes, then 2 minutes. In parallel, I used the StarAdventurer. This time I used the 450Da1 on there, with the 50mm lens, later with the 200mm. The focus seemed better with the 50mm lens than last time with the 450Da2. Of course, the temperatures this time weren't quite so high either.

With the 4min exposures, I again had trails, as for the previous session. The 2min were at least somewhat usable, but made for an unsatisfying total exposure time.

The pictures taken with the 200mm lens seemed to be washed out in the lower middle part, not sure if it had fogged over some or what exactly happened there. With the 50mm lens, exposures were ok, but after processing I was less than happy with the bright left and right edges of the picture, seems like the gradient removal / background flattening didn't quite succeed.

For a change, Ielwen with F.S. The evening started off slightly windy, so I went with the ED80 rather than the Newton. I also used the lengthened tripod, GoTo, Guiding… which all went flawlessly once I got the physical setup done.

I targeted the heart nebula IC1805 in Cassiopeia. A first long exposure with guiding was done with ISO1600, 5 minutes… which was fine. I then went with ISO800 and 10 minutes per picture, a series of 10.

In parallel, I used the 200mm lens on the StarAdventurer. I tried for the slight nebulosity near the middle star of Cassiopeia, the Pleiades, the california nebula, the E nebula (Barnard 142 and 143) in Aquila, and the central part of Auriga.

I haven't been happy with the Pleiades or the middle of Cassiopeia, neither with Auriga, but the California and E nebulae went well despite rather short total exposures.

Of course, all pictures were processed including darks, bias and flat frames. The stacking was done in both DSS and regim, but turned out better in regim for the 200mm stuff. Background processing was done in fitswork, some stretching in GIMP 2.9, color calibration in regim, final processing again in GIMP 2.9.

These past evenings had CS, but I was otherwise occupied. This evening I was to babysit the kids, but once they were sound asleep, I set up the Newton in the back yard - I wanted to test guiding again with the Newton, which hadn't turned out so well the last two times I tried. With the rather bright sky from town, I couldn't exactly go to really long exposures, but what I did get around to came out fine. My view from the back yard is mostly towards east/southeast, so I started off with IC405 flaming star, went on to the (still very low over the horizon) M42 great orion with running man, on to M1 crab, and finally IC410 tadpole.

While the 450Da was busy, I set up the smaller, lighter Meade LXD75 mount I recently acquired (used) - getting it set up with 3-star alignment was rather quickly done, and navigation was pretty accurate (at least as estimated with the FH80/400). That light mount is fine, if a tad loud during operation. I realized though that I'll need a second T2/EOS ring if I want to use both mounts photographically in parallel.

Two clear evenings announced, new moon, so I went off to Ielwen. It turned out to be quite windy (eastern wind, very cold), so I set up the ED80 rather than the bigger Newton. I wanted to play with the Meade mount, but had forgotten to bring the cabling stuff, and had to settle for the SA.

Using the ED80, my target for the night was still very low if at all visible, I started off on IC405. Later, I switched to the main target of the Christmas Tree cluster with Cone nebula, still later I took a few shots of the Flame and Horsehead nebulas. Guiding worked fine for IC405 and NGC2264. When getting to Alnitak and friends, I first forgot to activate it, then the camera wasn't recognized any more - due to low battery, and the DSLR also gave up shortly afterwards.

With the SA, I did some tests with the 400mm Sigma lens, with no good results.

More tests with the 135mm lens also weren't good, as I couldn't get into proper focus - a manipulation of the lens may be necessary.

I then went on with the wonderful 200mm L lens, on Orion (Alnitak to Sword), Witch's Head, M35 and Jellyfish, Christmas Tree, Alnitak to M78, Rosetta, Beehive/Praesepe, Andromeda.

The resulting quality especially with the SA was limited, some of that due to the rather strong wind.

The second evening in a row, I went only after my woodworking - i.e. later, which was good as Gemini/Monoceros had risen further and I could start right off on the Christmas Tree nebula. As I wanted Orion freeer of light pollution, I did not go to Ielwen, but to the Donatus chapel between Beidweiler and Eschweiler.

While yesterday was windy, this evening was rather quiet and felt much less cold, even though it got frosty at -5C. I set up the Newton on the NEQ6. A few landscape pictures were taken at wide angle using the SA tripod, then I set up the Meade mount and used the 200mm lens on there - which turned out very much stabler than the SA, and pretty good at tracking after proper north alignment (which was trickier than on the SkyWatcher mounts).

The Newton was used mainly on the Christmas Tree nebula, I later took a few shots each of Alnitak / Flame / Horsehead, M1, and M46 (no juice left for guiding that last one, apparently not enough for proper tracking either).

The 200mm lens was used on a few landscape pics, then Orion, M35/Jellyfish, Pleiades.

AAL meeting as this was the first saturday evening of the month, with clear sky to boot - but unfortunately, somewhat humid. As some wind was announced, I skipped the Newton and went straight with the ED80.

The sky was bearable towards zenith, less so closer to the horizon. The ED80 targeted the Soul nebula, followed by Alnitak, M42, and finally Andromeda. The 50mm lens was used on the Orion and Auriga constellations.

Clear sky, but work the day after… I set up in my back yard.

The LXD75 was used with the 200mm lens on ca. 1h worth of the central part of Auriga (subs of 100s, ISO1600, f/4).

I also tried my newly acquired, used 100-400mm Canon lens, on the StarAdventurer. I had a hard time to properly focus, somehow the stars wouldn't be reduced to points but remained discs - whether at 400mm or 100mm. Test shots were made at 400mm M42, the upper part of Orion (Sharpless whatever, to the right and up from Betelgeuse), and at 100mm of the Hyades. I finally did some shots of Perseus using the 50mm lens, which on this body and these temperatures didn't quite get into focus either (I was at infinity and couldn't go beyond, which would have been necessary). I guess I'll have to check on the body, whether there may be screws to adapt the sensor position.