January 12, 2011
OK, its been a whole year since I last posted, however I do have lots of excuses but a lot has happened.
I started planning/dreaming of an Observatory back in 2008 shortly after I started astro imaging but due to one thing and another ( 3 house moves falling apart at the last minute ) it was only in august 2010 I realised my dream.
The Observatory was built and installed by Alexander’s Observatories, its 16ft by 10ft has a 6ft by 10ft warm room and sits on paving slab base I have two piers installed on a concrete base that is independent from the raised floor. The interior walls are covered by plywood and painted with wood preservative.
I have two setups on individual piers, the first rig is a C11 edge HD SCT on a EQ6 mount for planetary and galaxy work and is guided with a off access guider. The second rig is a C8 SCT with a hyperstar and guided with a WO 90mm refractor on a Heq5 mount, both rigs are controlled independently using eqmod.
I’ve still got a few finishing touches to complete but we are all ready to go once these clouds disappear 
Finally I would like to introduce you all to the The “ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha” Observatory
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December 23, 2009
This image very nearly didn’t get taken at all due to a dew spot developing on the QHY8 nose piece and my scope very nearly running into the mount due to the fact I forgot I needed to do a meridian flip and fell asleep, luckily disaster was averted and the resulting image is below.
I’m still struggling with egg shaped stars with the MN 190 at exposures longer that 5 mins due to flex but DSS has made the best of what I got. The image is also cropped due to me framing the star in the centre of the FOV rather that the object!!!! DOH!!!!
OTA: SW 190 Mak Newt
Guiding: William Optics 90 DSI pro II PHD
QHY8 MaximDL, 30x300s
Stacked using: DeepSkyStacker
Processed using PSCS2
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December 23, 2009
Finally got round to processing some data I took at Kelling this year!!! Its been a busy 3 months with moving house and setting up my study but have finally managed to find some time to sit down and get some processing done.
As if capturing the data isn’t difficult enough, this processing stuff is sometimes beyond me but I’ve done my best although I’m sure the more proficient imagers out there could do a far better job with the data than I have but as they say “Rome wasnt built in a day”
Merry Christmas to you all.
Jon
OTA: SW 190 Mak Newt
Guiding: William Optics 90 DSI pro II PHD
QHY8 MaximDL, 30x300s
Stacked using: DeepSkyStacker
Processed using PSCS2
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July 5, 2009
This is the second time I have attended the Kelling Heath Star Party, the first time was September 08 where we had 3 clear nights!!! This time I only managed I night of imagining due to the sky being a bit milky. Kelling Heath is a really great site and I would recommend it to everyone, the site is well laid out, the people are very friendly and more than happy to share their expertise. Another great find this year was the breakfast you can get from the center, the perfect antidote to a all night session
I managed to get 4 hours of data but had to scrap approx 3 hours worth of subs due to flex (note to self, always remember to check kit is locked down tight prior to imagining )
I have struggled a bit with the processing as every time I tried to being the detail out in M81, I would blow out the core of M82, saying all of that this is my best image of these two to date so I can’t complain too much.
OTA: SW 190 Mak Newt
Guiding: William Optics 90 DSI pro II PHD
QHY8 MaximDL, approx 6x 600
Stacked using: DeepSkyStacker
Processed using PSCS2
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July 2, 2009
This is the second image I have taken with my Atik 16hrc ( which is a great camera for Galaxy work ). I still seem to be struggeling to get the vivid colours you see in other images of M51 but that gives me something to work on over the summer. It may just be washed out due to light polution
Cheers Jon
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March 9, 2009
Well, when I stared out on this hobby I wish some one had told me how frustrating it is!!!!!!! I can’t believe how many cloudy nights we get in the UK, I am sure I have spent more time looking at my telescopes rather than looking through them.
Saying all that I did manage to get out under a clear sky on the 6th of March and had the opportunity to have First Light with my new DFK camera and William Optics 90. I took around 1500 images at 60 fps which were the stacked and processed in Registax 5.
- Copernicus
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January 22, 2009
First clear night for ages so got home early and set the scope up, I had decided to go for M81 M82 with the MAKNEWT, so 4 star alignment, and M82 popped into the FOV (well, I thought it was M82). After centring the object I thought was M82, I changed the camera orientation to find M81 and after a hour of trying gave up and went for M82 on its own. I only managed a hours worth of data and the images on the screen didn’t look great so I didn’t bother doing any flats etc, I did stack the images, did a bit of curves and levels and ended up with a object that wasn’t M82. So I thought, I had either discovered a new DSO never before seen by man!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, or my alignment was off and it’s a completely different DSO and since it couldn’t possibly be my alignment it must be a new DSO . Getting more and more excited I thought that before I ring up the Royal Observatory claiming I had found a new object and explaining to them the name I wanted to give it, I sent a quick email to SteveL to check it with Astrometry.net.
To my disappointment (as you may have guessed already) it wasn’t a new DSO ……………. So in answer to my question when is M82 not M82………………….
when its NGC2976
Jon
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October 14, 2008
Another Kelling Hyperstar image! I really struggled with reducing the stars in this image but I’m happy how it turned out in the end. I’m hoping to get the rest of the veil later on during the year.
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October 13, 2008
This is another image from the Kelling Heath Star Party I attended at the end of September 2008. The image was taken using my Hyperstar setup, which has the perfect FOV for this object. M31 is however a difficult object to process give the range of brightness between the core and outer edges. I hope to capture some more data on this one, so keep an eye out for updates
OTA: celestron SCT C8 @ f/2 (Hyperstar v3)
Guiding: William Optics 72 DSI pro II PHD
QHY8 MaximDL, 15x300s
Stacked using: DeepSkyStacker
Processed using PSCS2
Clear Skies
Jon
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October 3, 2008
Well its been a while since I posted, mainly due to the poor weather. That being said I was lucky enough to go to the Kelling Heath star party at the end of September where we had 3 clear nights!!!!
This is the first image I took with my hyperstar set up and I have to say I’m very pleased with it. It was a steep learning curve but with help of my friend Steve L I have achieved some really good results.
Cheers Jon
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