Friday 21 December 2012

SOL

Ok so its been a while to say the least! Normally the winter would be the best time for astro imaging in the UK but due to the awful cloud weather and me working abroad for quite a bit recently I have not been able to get a lot done.
I am realising that I still have a lot to learn when it comes to image processing, especially with photoshop but I am finally getting to grips with the use of MaximDL to get the most out of the data I have before I try processing in photoshop. The biggest challenge I have found to date has been getting long enough on one target to collect enough data for a good picture due to getting cut short by cloud and the limited windos there have been for imaging the objects I wanted to look at. It is definately a game of patience!
One afternoon however I got a break in the clouds while pottering in the shed and decided to take the below picture of out closest star, the sun.
The sun is at quit a high period of activity at the moment and sun spots are quite prevalent as can be seen and should continue to be a common feature for the next couple of years until the solar maximum in 2014 when it will thn start to decline. These cycles usually last for about 11 years, peak to peak. These spots appear also in a specific pattern ranging out from the equator of the sun and is also shown below in what is commonly known as a butterfly diagram.



Date: 17/11/2012 14:41 GMT
Camera: Nikon D90
Lens: Altair Waves 102 ED Apochromatic Triplet
Exposure: 1/800 @ ISO1000
Filter: solar continum filter


Wednesday 8 August 2012

First Image from the observatory!

Well FINALLY there have been a couple of clear nights that I have een able to get the scope out and try some imaging. Not that it hasnt been without its frustrations and and problems....
As most know we have been plagued by the weather this summer and even when there has been a break in the clouds it has not been for long. All the setup has come in bits and pieces as small breaks have allowed me to first do the polar alignment then the GOTO alignment, all of which I ended up having to repeat after I loaded up  the scope with the camera and then decided to swap to just the 102 mm refractor for wide field imaging instead of having the dual mount RC and refractor as it just seemed like too much weight for the mount and i was having issues with the equipment coming into contact with the pier as the mount slewed round as it was all spread too wide. Last thing you want to do is run your nice ne CCD camera into the pier.
So it took a little while to get familiar with the software and th whole image capture and processing thing but i finally got there. I did try first with imaging M31 the Andromeda galaxy and while i did get a bit of detail and it was possible to see the gas clouds and the definition of the rings it was pretty much a full moon that night and it washed out so much of the detail that it wasn't worth  wasting too much time on it other than to help me lern the process.
The next night proved to be much more sucessful although it ended with some hardware problems that caused me to pack up without achieving anything like what I wanted to but at least getting enough data to make a start at something even if it doesnt have the ammount of detail I would like.
I took the following image with an SBIG STF8300 CCD camera mounted to an Altair Waves series 102mm/f714 ED triplet refractor. The image itself is not shown in true colour as I used narrow band H-Alpha, SII and OIII filters. Really I would like at least 4 hours of data to make a good image but due to a hardware problem (my mount decided to slew round at full speed on the DEC axis all on its own for no reason and its not the first time!) but instead i ended up with just 3 x 300 second subs in H-Alpha, 3 x 300 second subs in SII and 2 x 300 second subs in OIII which were all then dark and bias subtracted.


 After aligning, stacking and color combining the images using MaximDL5 I used photoshop to tweak the levels a little to help bring out the color more and get better definition in the gas clouds. The nebula itself is the Heart Nebula snd the bright part in the center of the image is the Open Cluster Melotte 15 which is a young star cluster at the heart of the nebula.

Sunday 29 July 2012

Observatory Complete!

OK so I finally got my observatory all built apart from a few small cosmetic items and thought I would post a few pictures and give a little update.
Firstly all I have to say is "You gotta love Tec Screws!!!!!". I only recently found out they even existed and they are just a brilliant invention. They are basically self-tapping screws and are similar to sheet metal screws but have a drill point instead of coming to a sharp point and will drill their own hole which eliminates the need to pre-drill a pilot hole. The whole process of cladding the shed took only a day by myself using these (although i did have a whole rack of batteries on charge that I had to constantly keep cycling to keep my drill going).
The Tec screws can be used for almost every part of the construction and are supplied to both affix the panels to the frame and can also be used to stitch the panels together where the seams meet. I also used them to affix some wooden framing to the inside of the roofing supports so that I could later fix my interior panelling over the insulation.
Here i have affixed 33mm square section to the angle iron roofing supports that were welded on. I could have used the wood fixing version of the Tec screws for this and fitted it directly to the roofing sheet but I found that due to the large diameter of the wood screw versions it would have just splitthe wood as they are really designed for construction much larger industrial buildings.
Also the double mounting at the top of the apex.
 Below is the fully clad shed including the doors which i also made using a wooden internal frame to save on weight and allow easier fixing of door furniture which I clad on one side with a 1mm skin of galvanised tin sheeting which I painted over and on the inside I used the same 9mm plyboard that I used on all of the internal walls.
I'm sure someone will notice that I have used opposite profile sheet for the roofing and the walls. This was not in the original plan for the build but the supplier for the sheeting ballsed up (even though I gave them detailed dimensions of what i required) and basically sent me a single cut to length sheet for each of the sides and each roof slope. In the end I knew of someone nearby that had a load of panels left over from the construction of an industrial building and managed to scrounge enough sheets to clad all the walls (I just used the panels I had and cut them down to make the roof skin as there was only just enough cladding to do the walls). I had to sacrifice a little on aesthetics for this but it probably saved me around £500 in the costs of panelling in the end (should have known the price i was quoted for it was too good to be true!).
 You may be thinking that the amount of screws used to secure and stitch the panels is a bit overkill but due to the fact that I wanted a weathertight seal on all seams I had to put that many in to get the seams to pull up sufficiently on the applied mastic sealer.
Yes I know it looks a bit dirty but that is due to the scrounged up panels that I had to pull out of a scrapping pile at the construction site.
Below is my trailing electrical supply, just a coiled wire under the desk that acts like an extension lead when I roll the shed back for viewing. If I ever build another I will buy the underground ducting with the cable already inside! When i tried to install the cable (I had chosen a good flexible cable due to the fact that I needed the shed and hence the power supply to be portable) I found that I had a small kink in the ducting where a large rock had fallen on it when it was buried and that a soft rubber coated cable does not feed at all well through an corrugated ducting! I think it took me over two hours to pull the 14m of cable through with a lot of cursing and the ingenious use of a coil of Mig welding wire as a cable snake.
Installed IP54 distribution socket as well as lighting (I used a red lamp in the light of course)
I found out to my frustration that it does not seem possible to buy a 240v power supply that goes with any dew heater controller (I did find some online for the Kendrick system I have but they were only available in 115v in Canada). The only connection they seem to have is the common cigarette lighter plug that you put into the car. Not happy with this I decided I would have to improve the situation as I did not wish to have one of those portable battery packs lying around the floor.
Firstly I did a bit of online research online and thought I would be able to get a mains to 12v DC converter with the correct adaptor and they can indeed be found, unfortunately they only go up to about 5A maximum and even then the reviews were not optimistic about them being able to cope with this load. I decided in the end to go the route of a proper industrial PSU that I could wire up to a 4 way cigarette lighter connection splitter so that I could then use it to power also my mount and CCD camera. I found a brilliant one online that could supply 10A and was a reasonable price http://uk.farnell.com/jsp/search/productdetail.jsp?sku=1772179&CMP=i-bf9f-00001000 and even though it shipped from Belgium they had it to me within 24 hours. (sorry for the crappy picture, was getting a little sunny for once)
Below is also a quick snap of the inside of the observatory with the pier, mount and telescopes. I installed a wrap around desk at the far end and still had enough room for a big comfortable office chair! All the cables and equipment were hung from the walls using packets of cup hooks purchased from my local Homebase store. (you will have to excuse the empty beer cans in the background but building this was thirsty work ;-) All the walls and the ceiling were filled with a 40mm polystyrene sheeting material for insulation before fitting the 9mm ply board over. All I have left to do is insulate the awkward apex sections and make a draught excluder system for around the base.
A quick shot of the interior at night with the red lights on.
All in all it was pretty fun to build although if I did it again there are definitely a few things I would do differently. As far as a budget for the project goes I didn't feally have one set down before I started as I had no idea what the materials would cost but in the end I did a lot of begging and scrounging and got some of the materials for free. The only main costs are laid out below:

Cement: £75 for 16 bags (the concrete mix as well as 8 bags of cement for the extra tonne of concrete I didn't think I needed and equipment I got for free as well as some free help to pour the concrete)
Rollers: £6.50 each for the 6
Rails: £24.70 for each 3m length (3 were used)
Paint: £17.20 each for 2 tins of rust protection metal paint
Profile sheet: £160 for the panels I did have to buy
Tec Screws: £28.60
Insulation: £56 for 8 4' by 8' sheets
Plyboard: £148 for 8 4' by 8' sheets
Timber: £78.90
Electrical Fixtures: £213.40

This brought me to a grand total of £858 which I think is pretty good considering what it would have cost to have an observatory professionally built or even to buy one of the various "flat pack" variety that are around such as the "Pod".

All I need now is some good weather so that i can start imaging and continue posting!

Tuesday 17 July 2012

Observatory Frame

So, finally got my frame finished and my rails fitted. I have just used sliding rollers and guide rails designed for sliding gates. Each roller should take approximately 300 Kg so 6 rollers is more than enough. I actually fitted the rails before brining the frame to the site and was a nail biting moment dropping it down on to the tracks, just hoping i hadnt made any mistakes with the measurements but it fitted on perfectly!

The whole frame is made from welded 40mm box section with the addition of a couple of braces on the apex that are 30mm angle bar that i will use to screw down the roofing pannels and also fit square section wooden rails to si that i have something to secure the internal ceiling panels to once i insulate it (cant be getting cold in the winter, that just wouldnt do at all).

Below is also a close up of the roller system that i fitted to the base of the frame. I addes the vertical brace to give a little extra strength because of how much i had weakened the frame by cutting out the space for the roller to fit in and the other horizontal brace is actually where i have my means of securing the frame to the ground. I sunk large concrete raw plugs and i will fit two M12 bolts into each corner which should be sufficient to secure the observatory in any strong winds.
Hopefully i will have another update shortly as i now have all the materials ready to start fitting the roof and walls (even after a slight SNAFU from the supplier for all my sheeting material)

Monday 9 July 2012

The Foundations

Well its been a couple of weeks since my last update on the observatory but the beautiful Scottish summer has been holding me back. I finally got a dry enough period to pour the concrete (but only just) and most of the time it was just a muddy bog. The most upsetting part being that i could not get a machine close enough to the site as they were just sinking in the muddy field adjacent and had to cart all my concrete by wheelbarrow, all 3 tonnes of it!!! Thankfully i had a 1 tonne mixer and a forklift to drop the bags of mix in so that saved me hours of backbreaking work.

The first picture here is after the initial pour and levelling with a scraper board.

The second one here is after polishing of the concrete. Just let it set for about an hpour and a half then, kneeling on a wooden board to spread the weight, rub down the surface with a small wooden block dipped in water using a circular motion. It doesnt give a perfect finish but takes away all the rough spots.


 Finally, a quick shot of the pier foundation with my template and mounting bolts. Notice i have made a separate concrete pour with the pier foundation and i intend to remove the wooden formers to that the pier will be completely isolated once i am done which should help to stop any vibration affecting the mount when i start with the photography.

The next update should come soon and will be on the roll off shed itself that i have been working on.

Sunday 17 June 2012

Observatory Build

Ok, so i finally decided to bite the bullet and build my own observatory. I had a good look around at what was available and although there are some impressive off the shelf items out there they were all rather expensive and didnt have the functionality i wanted for the price they were asking. So i got out a pen and paper and started to design my own.
Now a lot of you out there who have observatories have either gone for one of these off the shelf premade domes or gone for the roll off roof option offered by a few builders, well i have decided to go for something a little different and have designed a complete roll off observatory!
There were several considerations for my plan but mostly space and functionality. Living in Scotland it is rather cold as im sure you all know which was the main reason i didnt want to go for something like the SkyShed Pod as it leaves one just a little too exposed to the elements. I was also a little limited on space so a roll off roof was also becoming a bit of an issue as to have a warm room meant having, not only space for the telescope which had to be covered but also a separate work room and space somewhere for the roof to be moved to, that together with the fact that the wind here is rather ferocious sometimes, reaching in excess of 100 mph i was too worried about a wooden construction being blown away.
So, thats when i came up with the idea of designing a rolling shed observatory! This way i minimise my footprint by effectively storing my telescope in the warm room when not in use and when i want to gaze upon the wonders of our universe i simply unsecure the shed, open the doors and roll it back to have the telescope ready for use and my warm room right there waiting for me.
The first obstacle i faced was the ground itself; the only available spot i had to put it for the least unobstructed views was a little uneven to say the least and even in places not quite wide enough. Thankfully i had a mini digger available to me which made the job much easier. You can see below a picture of the ground after the initial levelling.

As you can see the site had to be dug out the side of the hill and was not quite wide enough in parts (sorry about the hand in the picture here but i was trying to block out the sun, the only day so far it did not rain!)
Once level i had to mark out the site and dig my foundations: as it is not a building of any great weight the main concrete pour will be sufficient to anchor the building and i will not need traditional foundations, only thicker areas of concrete where i plan to fit the tie down bolts which will stop the concrete cracking when i  fit them later. The only main foundation i have is for the pier which i dug out to 3 feet and used a large plastic barrel as the former for the foundation to hold the shape, size and position as i back filled around it and packed it in with an earth compactor  (i will be keeping my pier foundation separate from my main base pour so as to reduce the chance of any vibration effection my mount when i start imaging). Below i have pictures of the basic site layout and of the pier foundation former sunk into the gorund. It was far from a pleasant day for it but i perciviered nont the less.

Saturday 16 June 2012

An introduction

Ok, so i suppose i should start with an introduction to this blog and what it is all about. Mostly this will focus on my hobby and passion which is astronomy. I am as you might say just a rank amature but i hope to progress to a more learned and experienced astronomer which should become more evident as my blog continues. 
I have been interested in astronomy and space in general for as long as i can remember. The fascination started many years ago as a child watching episodes of the original Star Trek and Buck Rogers, wondering to myself if all those things of the creators imagination were really possible out there. 
To this day the mysteries of what is really out there still fascinate me and i have spent many a night studying the works of the most prominent and impressive minds of our time whose lives works have been to try and solve these mysteries for us and the novels of those who seek to entice us into imagining something greater and questioning our true destiny in this universe.
I have spent most of my working life travelling all over the world and have only now settled into a position where i can actually spend time indulging my hobby and for those that are interested i will be keeping a record of my activities here. 
To start i will leave you with an image i took recently of the Venus transit of the Sun in Costa Rica, from a boat in Marina Papagayo just after i finished work. It is not the greatest solar image i have ever taken but i was being beaten by the incoming clouds and trying to shoot from a moving platform.


Device:    Nikon D90
Lens:    VR 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6D
Focal Length:    550mm
Focus Mode:    Manual
AF-Area Mode:    Single
VR:    ON
Aperture:    f/11
Shutter Speed:    1/10s
Exposure Mode:    Manual
Exposure Comp.:    0EV
Metering:    Matrix
ISO Sensitivity:    ISO 640
White Balance:    Auto, 0, 0
Color Space:    sRGB
High ISO NR:    OFF
Long Exposure NR:    OFF
Active D-Lighting:    Auto
Picture Control:    [LS] Landscape
Base:    [LS] Landscape
Sharpening:    4
Contrast:    Active D-Lighting
Brightness:    Active D-Lighting
Saturation:    0
Hue:    0
For this picture i was using a 2 X tele extender and a Thousand Oaks Optics polymer plus solar filter.