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Actually astronomy was what really introduced me
to the scientific world.
I was just 13 years old when I joined my first amateur
astronomy club.
This was Aster and I spent
there many, many hours of enjoyment with very nice
people sharing the same interest. I made there some of my best
friends, too.
Time goes by and I had the chance to meet real almost-professional
astronomers. They founded a group called GEA which I joined from the
very first moment. Now they do serious business and most of their
work is being published in magazines such as The Astronomical
Journal. If you feel like to, don't forget to visit their site
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This is my
current equipment, at February, 29, 2004. The white OTA is a Vixen 8"
f/4, model R200SS, with a 6x30 finderscope. It is mounted on a Vixen
GP-DX mount which lies on top of a home-built Pier. Connected to the
mount is a SkySensor 2000PC unit which I use to control the scope.
Attached to the eyepiece holder I show my MX516 USB CCD from Starlight
Xpress, while the two grey wires hanging there connect the SkySensor and
the CCD to my PC computer which is inside
my house. You know, I like astronomy but don't really like to feel in my
flesh the hideous jaws of cold winter :), so I connect everything to the
scope, go inside, close the door and control and observe from my PC :)
Oh Man how I start to hate wires all over the place...
Next to it you can also see my travelling OTA and its mount, a chinese
6" and an EQ3-2 with motors. |
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| My first Images taken with
the 150mm f/5 show MARS in
its recent oposition in summer 2003. At that time I did not have the 8"
f/4, so I had to work with the 6". Still chinese reflectors have good optics and I managed to get
something done with it and my webcam. Certainly images have poor quality
but this is only showing my limited skills at astrophotography. I hope
I'll improve with time... |
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I took my first
chances at the recent Mars opposition in August 2003. I bought a
Philips TouCam Pro webcam, attached it to the eyepiece, recorded
about twenty short movies and got what you see here. This is just
one frame after processing with Paint Shop Pro.
The picture shows Solis Lacus,
and it was taken
in September, 17, 2003.
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Now
this is the result
of stacking several frames from
the same short .avi movie.
The final image has been
processed using Registax and
a wavelet filter. As you
can see, stacking reduces noise
and enhances details.
Still, the images were too
small and pixelation
is noticeable. |
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And this one was
taken in September, 21, 2003. Although it does not seem to improve
quality over the previous one, there's an important difference: this
one is the result of stacking frames from a really bad short movie
(this was not really a good night to gaze the stars...) with a
bigger image of the planet. Of course, Registax and the wavelet
filters did the magic... |
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And yet another one :) This is the result of once again stacking
frames from a better shot. Heavy wavelets processing has been
performed in order to enhance details and contrast. Taken in
Septemeber, 26, 2003. |
| Mars
is still there and I'm not planning to withdraw easily :D However
bad weather is also here and it is hard to get decent images. In any
case this one was taken in October, 2, 2003 and I decided to play a
little bit with gamma, brightness and contrast, and that's why it
looks different from the previous ones... |
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| Once Mars returned to its normal (small) apparent size, I
started imaging SATURN.
This guy is rises at a higher declinations,but it's smaller and details
other than the rings are fainter. Not easy to del with. |
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| This
is my first image of Saturn, taken on Novemeebr 25 2003. Actually this
is also my first image with the an 8" f/5 I had, and was done at prime
focus with a 2x Barlow, that is, at f/10. I have to try with eyepiece
projection since the original shots were too small and I had to reduce
pixelation with Paint Shop Pro. Once again, I used Registax and a
wavelet filter. Cassini division is clearly seen, but not much more. |
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yet another one, taken on Nov 28 2003. This time I stacked two 2x
Barlows and used no eyepiece, which means I was working at f/20
(f/5x2x2). This is the result of processing a 120 sec. capture with
Registax 2. Details are faint but quality is better than the previous
picture. Still, I find registration of Saturn images quite difficult as
there is no small and well-contrasted item I can use for that pourpose... |
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This one was also taken on Nov 28 2003, with two barlows stacked. This
has less wavelet processing than the previous one, so details are more, realistic, although I still have to
improve over this. In any case, focusssing (always an issue when doing
planetary imaging) is slightly better than in the previous shots. |
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...and
on December 6, 2003 I had better seeing than other nights and managed
to do a better job. I took 10 30 secs. avis, processed each one
separately and stacked the resulting images. I keep working with two
barlows, as it is much easier than doing eyepiece projection. |
Yet
another shot. This time I purchased a 3x Tele Vue Barlow and use it
with extension rings to bring my f/5 into an f/18 or f/20 approx. Looks
like the new Barlow is not doing a big improvement, though I must admit
seeing in Barcelona has not been good really. This one was taken on
December 16th 2003.
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I guess
that's enough regarding our solar system by now...
After playing around with the Toucam, I decided to purchase a real CCD
camera, a Starlight Xpress MX516
USB. This is a monochrome one with a small chip. but after spending all
my savings in the scope, I couldn't afford anything better. In any case
I'm certainly a newbie at CCD imaging, so this is going to be my
starting toy. I'll be adding pictures of deep sy objects as soon as I
get them :)
Please remember I live in Gavà (Barcelona) and that means *LOTS* of
light pollution... registering anything from home is quite a success by
itself.
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This
is the first picture taken with the MX516 I can show. It is pretty
ugly, I haven't substracted any dark current image and have not taken
any good flat field. It's just the sum of few averages of 45sec per
frame.
This one was taken with the 6". I must try it again with the 8" f/4,
but I guess that's going to be next year when Orion is up. |
I
keep trying to image deep sky objects with my MX516. This one is a shot
of the Sombrero galaxy (M 104) which I took last Feb 28, 2004.
Processing was done with Iris, but I have problems with flats yet to be
solved. In any case the other night it was cold (to Spain standards of
course) and the ccd behaviour was pretty good. I'm still amazed one can
get such things from an hyper-light-polluted place as Barcelona... Here
I stacked five 1 minute frames.
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This
one is M51, the Whirlpool galaxy, taken once again in Gavà on Feb 29,
2004. This is the sum of fifteen 1 minute shots processed and aligned in
maximDL. I have used darks but not flats, since I am still learning how
to take and use them... time to time.
I will try to get a bigger image using a Barlow lens...
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I like this one also... just the moon :)
Nice thing is that the moon let's you do whatever you want. Go figure,
I simply attached my SLR camera to the eyepiece and shot this one. After
that, I used an unsharp mask filter and enhanced brightness and that's
all...
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This is another shot
of M51.
This time I took a bunch of 45 1 minute images and averaged them in
AstroArt 3.0. Great Proggy! Let's you automatize most of the tedious
work...
I work now in interlaced mode, so vertical resolution is twice what I
used before. Compare to the previous shot of M51... |
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