It’s been a while since the club did an imaging workshop. Back then, no-one had ever heard of a CMOS sensor and all the big boy camera manufacturers like SBIG, Starlight Express, and Atik were only making huge pixeled mono only CCD sensors. The Skywatcher EQ5 mount was the imaging mount of choice – unless you could afford something from Software Bisque or Astrophysics. The tracking wasn’t great, so you had to use a…
Cornish John finds Ice Giant 2
JWST Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI Through his telescope In March 1781, the astronomer William Herschel noticed an object appearing as a disk and not a star and found it to be a new planet beyond the orbit of Saturn. He had discovered the Ice Giant planet Uranus which became the outermost of the seven known planets in our solar system. Thirty seven years after Herschel’s discovery, poor tenant farmers Thomas and Tabitha Adams…
Do you come(t) here often?
Image Credit : ESO/E. Slawik If I asked you to name the most famous comet, I would put my money on you replying “Halley’s Comet.” Comets are huge lumps of dust, rock, gas and ice that exist in the massive Oort Cloud in the outer reaches of our solar system way out past Pluto. Some of these objects are gradually pulled in by the Sun’s gravity and, according to NASA, the number of known…
Article: Winter skies: cool, clear and sparkly
At this time of the year many of us do not enjoy the short days and cold weather. But, these winter months can bring clear winter night skies and plenty of fascinating sights for stargazers and is an ideal time to observe the cosmos. Longer nights provide more opportunity to spot the celestial wonders overhead. Colder temperatures means that the atmosphere is a little more steady which improves visibility and provides better conditions for…
New Pixinsight Processing Workflows
We have two images for you today. Both were processed, by one of our members Dean – you’ve seen his work here before. The image is of two objects, one embedded within the other. The coloured clouds of dust and gas is IC410 a diffuse nebula being illuminated (ionised) by hot bright young stars and NGC1893, known as an open star cluster – basically a close grouping of stars at the centre of the…
It’s Dark, that’s what’s the Matter!
Two of the most distant galaxies seen to date are captured in these Webb pictures of the outer regions of the giant galaxy cluster Abell 2744. cience credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, and Tiger Hsiao (Johns Hopkins University). Image processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI). As astronomers we are always looking for clear dark skies so we can better see the stars, planets, moons, comets, nebulae, galaxies and any other weird and wonderful things and stuff…