Cloudless in Tampines on the first day of New Year.

Post by **weixing** » Thu Jan 01, 2004 6:54 pm

Hi,
The sky in Tampines is cloudless to the north and east now (18:50). Tonight may be going to a new site in Tampines for my observation session.

Will update after my observation session!! Hope that weather hold!!!

Sam Lee · Post by **Sam Lee** » Thu Jan 01, 2004 7:01 pm

YES, the sky over my area (Woodlands) here is crystal clear but won't be doing any observation. Good luck!

Regards,
Sam

We are the Borg, Resistance is Futile.

harlequin2902 · Post by **harlequin2902** » Thu Jan 01, 2004 7:35 pm

Yup, in Toa Payoh Central now, it's like this :

Tempted to bring my Pronto out for a spin, but have to join Indiana Jones in one of his adventures later at 9pm

. Maybe later tonight, after the show. Toa Payoh park with the Pronto, anyone ?

elton · Post by **elton** » Thu Jan 01, 2004 9:52 pm

Teleport is going out now... wanna try for that comet. hope to see at least some elongation if not a small tail

Post by **weixing** » Fri Jan 02, 2004 2:02 am

Hi,
The sky was very very very clear and the seeing was very good. The saturn was very bright and clear.

My target was to image Saturn, but the at 20:45, saturn is still low and in the light polluted zone in Tampines sky. So I decide to take a look at M31 and finally found M31 by star hopping, although it only look like a ball of dim light... thanks to the Moon near by

Anyway, the saturn leave the light polluted zone around 21:30 and I start to image it. The seeing was so good that the raw saturn image is very good. The attachment is the initial processing of the images using RegiStax, it is the best saturn I take to date... very happy

After imaging saturn, I point the telescope at M42 and experiment the camera setting with it and found out that the Nebulae can be capture just 8second of exposure at ISO400.... too bad my mount can't track accurately even for 8 second

....hei hei... more reason to get a Vixen GP mount...

I have to pack up at 22:30, because I want to see the last episodes of the japanese drama series... hee hee

Very reluctance to leave... Hope that friday and saturday night will be these clear....

Post by **Airconvent** » Fri Jan 02, 2004 3:00 am

weixing wrote:Hi,
The sky was very very very clear and the seeing was very good. The saturn was very bright and clear.

My target was to image Saturn, but the at 20:45, saturn is still low and in the light polluted zone in Tampines sky. So I decide to take a look at M31 and finally found M31 by star hopping, although it only look like a ball of dim light... thanks to the Moon near by

Anyway, the saturn leave the light polluted zone around 21:30 and I start to image it. The seeing was so good that the raw saturn image is very good. The attachment is the initial processing of the images using RegiStax, it is the best saturn I take to date... very happy

After imaging saturn, I point the telescope at M42 and experiment the camera setting with it and found out that the Nebulae can be capture just 8second of exposure at ISO400.... too bad my mount can't track accurately even for 8 second ....hei hei... more reason to get a Vixen GP mount...

I have to pack up at 22:30, because I want to see the last episodes of the japanese drama series... hee hee Very reluctance to leave... Hope that friday and saturday night will be these clear....

Hi all,
Its a sin NOT to be observing tonight...amazing...clear CLOUDLESS SKY from 10pm - 2.30 am!! And its still clear now as I write this at almost 3am!
I wanted to go to Dempsey but except form Matthew who was leaving at 12.30m, no one wanted to join in, so I obs from my multi-storey car park instead.

Took some astro pics but none as good as my previous effort.
Weixing, your image is very good! Like taken from an 8" scope! How many images did you stack and what is the magnification used?
Odd about your comment on M42. I can't seem to capture it at all...refuses to appear.

Also tried my hand at stack today but the results were atrocious...anyone has a "user instruction" as to how to stack? The final image was worse than any of its raw images....sigh..

Anyway, after taking some less than satisfactory images of Saturn and Jupiter, proceeded to check out the following :

M35, M36, M37, M38, M42, M43, M44, M45, M46, M47, M48, M49, M50, M79
Really great to have my goto operational again! Some objects were behind buildings, so I had to skip them. Overall, had to abort at 2.30am as most other objects are behind buidlings and fact that I slept at 4.30 am the previous day, so quite tired.

rich

Grievous · Post by **Grievous** » Fri Jan 02, 2004 3:25 am

HAh! The night has just started for me! hitting down to my lobby with my new 20x80s w/o tripod!! Hope i wun get wobbly hands later in the day!

Sleep tight eh?
Charlie

Post by **weixing** » Fri Jan 02, 2004 11:04 am

Hi,
Too bad.. today is a working day... Looking at the image taken by the satellite at 08:00am, the cloud are coming again...

Hope that they came fast and go fast...

Anyway, the saturn images are taken using around 107x at 4x optical zoom. I use all the 50 images to stack and produce the final image. The camera setting are as follows:
METERING : SPOT
MODE : M
SHUTTER : 1/4sec
APERTURE : F5.1
EXP +/- : 0.0
FOCAL LENGTH : f32.0mm(X1.0)
IMG ADJUST : STANDARD
SENSITIVITY : ISO100
WHITEBAL : SUNNY
SHARPNESS : OFF
QUALITY : 2272x1704 FINE

Also, the attachment is the M42 test image. Look at the tracking error...

My mount even can't track properly for 8 seconds!!! May be next time I should try to do a better drift star alignment and try again...

By the way, can any Vixen GP mount ower kindly give me the dimension of the Vixen dovetail plate, especially the drill holes and their distance apart. I'm trying to see is it possible to mount my SkyWatcher ViewMax 127 on the Vixen GP mount without using tube ring.

Thanks and have a nice day.

dew · Post by **dew** » Fri Jan 02, 2004 3:10 pm

Also, the attachment is the M42 test image. Look at the tracking error... My mount even can't track properly for 8 seconds!!! May be next time I should try to do a better drift star alignment and try again...

wow your pic of m42 is really amazing! i tried to do it on my ETX 125 for 8 sec too but cause of tracking it turned out pretty blurry.. and all i could get was a green colour from the nebula.. yours already has got the pink showing! amazing! very impressed.. now i'm inspired to try it myself.. haha.. i was thinking of taking a series of short exposures (1-2 sec) and stacking it using registrax.. could that work?

eu-wen

Post by **weixing** » Fri Jan 02, 2004 3:58 pm

Hi,
I have try 1 second, 2 seconds and 4 seconds also. Basically, the Nebulae didn't show up in 1 second and a little bit in 2 seconds and 4 seconds. I think the minimum exposure time to get a decent raw image for stacking is 4 or 8 seconds.

Also, the seeing must be great in order for such short exposure to be useful... and yesterday seeing was just great!!

Hope that by tonight the cloud will be gone...