Astroshed@Sawley

My new logo - courtesy of graphic design genius Amy Platkiw Looking back on my list of blogs, the last update from Astroshed@Sawley was 28th April 2018. So.....did I just give up? Declare the nights too short and simply go to bed? Nope - I got busy!! I took an early holiday in May. A cruise along the Norwegian Fjords had been planned for a while....so I took the opportunity to dismantle my mount and telescope and send the mount into Rother Valley Optics for a full service, re-grease, new bearings and a belt mod. Given the waiting list and turn around time for this service was 3-4 weeks, heading into the summer seemed to be the right time to do this with light nights etc - so I went for it! And then went on holiday!  Even while I was away I managed to get some lunar images. Check this out! A fantastic moonrise over Nordfjord taken from the upper deck of Cunard's Queen Victoria. It was early, mind! I stood next to the galley night shift when I took this picture. They wer

Fuzzy blobs and beautiful swirls - its galaxy season! I know this hobby can throw a number of curve balls your way from time to time, usually when you least expect it and have to react to a situation to save an imaging session from cloud rolling in or a sudden downpour from a seemingly clear sky. But the challenges of capturing distant galaxies in itself has proved a real test for me and several times I've had to re-think my setup and strategy just to gather the data I want. It's also made me re-consider my equipment needs - but I'll come to that later.... So what have I learnt so far?  Space is big...... really big! OK, so I stole this phrase (and obvious statement) from the excellent work of Douglas Adams but when it comes to galaxy season I can relate. I mean, galaxies are massive structures, several million light years across and packed with billions of stars. But, all things being relative, they are relatively tiny in my scope's field of view. Even throu

Shoot the Moon It's a common sight in the night sky..... too common for some astronomers who always crave dark skies for deep sky imaging. I get the frustration; especially when a full moon coincides with the first (and only) clear night for months. But I would challenge my astronomer colleagues we with this simple thought. How many of today's astronomers interest in the beauty of the night sky started with their first look at the moon through a pair of binoculars? Don't we owe something to the moon for getting us into this hobby in the first place? You have to work with it, avoid it if you must but if you can't, by all means pay it a visit with your telescopes and remind yourself where it all started. Just a thought. A thumbnail crescent moon  - my favourite profile For me, the best times to observe and image the moon are in the early waxing and late waning phases. There is nothing more evocative than an early morning thumbnail crescent moon, close to the hor

Finishing my build of the Astroshed coincided with the start of Autumn in the UK and the first realistic chance of getting some decent time on the winter constellations. I'd planned to tackle M31, the Andromeda galaxy first but I found myself limited by the high magnification of my Skywatcher 150 Mak. I just couldn't get the framing I was after and soon realised I needed to reduce my focal length, either through a focal reducer for the Mak or just get a smaller scope. My attention turned to Orion, the Hunter. Probably the constellation most people would recognise, with the 3 stars forming his belt,Betelguese (pronounced Beetle_Juice)the large orange star forming his right shoulder, Rigel on his left ankle and of course the Orion Nebula, an object I had enjoyed looking at as a boy through my first pair of binoculars, forming part of Orion's sword. M42 - The Orion Nebula I'd seen some wonderful images of the Orion nebula in many publication and forums ...spec

Anyone thinking about a home observatory should consider one of these conversions. You can be up and running in 1 minute - here's a short video to prove it!. And now I've installed an internet connection I can start to think about remote control and automation :-)

Time to build the Astroshed I don’t know when exactly I knew I needed my Astroshed. Maybe it was borne out of necessity; realising I had more kit than I knew where to put; my old shed being on my to-do list to demolish or I just got fed up of carting everything into the back garden to set-up and breakdown every time there was a solid chance of a clear night. I think it was the fact that, even when I got set up, I couldn’t move easily around the garden without setting of my neighbours security lights. I can remember a particularly frustrating session where this happened, only to be quickly followed with more frustration when the clouds rolled in. There had to be a better way to do this…… Trawling the internet one evening I came across a blog written by an amateur astronomer who had written about the same issues but had done something about it. Further research revealed a plethora of Youtube videos and stories of people converting mundane outbuildings, pre-fab sheds or even buil

I love a gadget. Especially a gadget with purpose. One that can be driven by a PC is even better. Oh the joy of astrophotography where this is concerned.Gaining control of the functions of my DSLR through an app on my PC really did appeal - and for good reason. Once you're set up to take photos you done't have to touch your camera - no camera shake. No camera shake means more accurate focusing through the live view provided through the camera to you PC. Plus, the software provides focusing tools (Full Width Half Measurement, Bahtinov mask etc) Just the job! I'm a Canon man - no denying it - so buying Backyard  EOS  was a logical step. Check it out at https://www.otelescope.com/store/category/2-backyardeos/   Further online research suggested I modified my DSLR to remove the IR Cut filter, this allowing the camera to see light emitted from emission nebulae that would otherwise be lost. I didn't fancy undertaking the job myself so enlisted the help of Andy Ellis from A

I started off with a 4 inch newtonian reflector on a manual equatorial mount. This was great fun at first. Finding and observing the moon and planets was both rewarding and frustrating. Rewarding in the detail you can see with even a modest scope when observing the moon, Jupiter and Saturn; frustrating in the realisation that everything is moving! How are you meant to take photo of something that's disappeared from the field of view even before you've had time to take the lens cap off and how on earth are you meant to get it in focus?? I had some success with snaps of the moon using a small digital camera but Jupiter was out of reach with this setup. Didn't take long to work out I needed to involve a computer and a motorised mount - but which one?  After selling my  newtonian to a work colleague I managed to pick up a Skywatcher Alt-Az GOTO mount with 5 inch Maksukov Cassegrain telescope attached. My first punt on Ebay for such an item - but what a fantastic buy. This w

I'm an amateur photographer with an interest in the stars. Does that make me an astrophotographer?? Not necessarily. I purchased a telescope and managed to fit my camera to it to take photographs, believing that's all you needed to do. Seemed a reasonable approach......after all, how hard could it be? As it's turned out, it's proven to be the most challenging thing I've attempted to do.  So, what's been my journey so far? Well, I guess I said to myself, after several failed attempts, if I wanted to do this properly I needed some help because simply applying some regular photographic techniques to this hobby was not working. Thanks to the internet I came across www.astrobackyard.com and the brilliant vlogs posted by Trevor Jones on  https://youtu.be/ctWNlV5QghA . Through Trevor's vlogs I've discovered so much and taken inspiration and advice from Trevor to build my own setup. Trevor has demonstrated you can achieve fantastic results with relatively mode