April 20th 2100 GMT Polar Regions and Meteor Hunt
I used the Seestar S50 in framing mode to capture the area around the pole star (Polaris) and managed 26 minutes integration. It was not as good as previous photos of the region I had captured with the DSLR camera.
I set the DSLR camera to take repeat photos to try to capture Lyrid shower meteors. I caught a bright short trail fireball from the shower at 2121 GMT.
April 20th 2000 GMT Moon, Jupiter and Venus
I used the Seestar S50 to photograph the moon and Jupiter using video but the S50 could not find Venus.
I caught Jupiter's moons but not the planet.
April 20th 1935 GMT Moon, Venus and Jupiter
I photographed the moon with Venus with my phone camera.
I photographed the moon with Jupiter with my phone camera.
April 20th 1045 GMT Sun
I took full disc and close-up videos of the sun with the Seestar S50.
April 19th 2130 GMT Meteor Hunt and Deep Sky
I set up the DSLR camera to take repeated images in an attempt to catch Lyrid meteors.
I caught a bright sporadic (non-shower) meteor and it was the only one. The time was unknown.
I stacked the first 100 images of the shoot to capture Ursa Minor and the head of Draco.
I photographed NGC2903 and M3 with the Seestar S50. I managed 24 minutes integration on NGC2903 and finished in GraXpert and GIMP.
I managed just one minute on M3.
April 19th 1950 GMT Moon with Venus
I photographed the moon with Venus with my phone camera.
April 19th 1915 GMT Moon
I took a video of the thin crescent moon with the Seestar S50 to stack to produce a still image.
April 19th 1035 GMT Sun
I took full disc and closeup videos of the sun. with the intention of stacking.
April 19th 2335 GMT M56
The sky finally cleared, so i photographed the globular cluster M56 with the Seestar S50. I managed 18 minutes integration before bedtime and finished in GraXpert and GIMP.
April 18th 2130 GMT Meteor Hunt
I set up the DSLR camera to catch Lyrid meteors but was having problems, needing to clean the lens and image sensor. Mostly due to cloud, I did not capture any meteors.
In parallel, I tried to use the Seestar S50 but I was only able to photograph Jupiter's moons before cloud rolled in.
April 18th 2100 GMT Meteors and a Galaxy
With lots of moving cloud, I decided to try to capture sunspots with my binoculars and filters. I found two and made a drawing.
April 15th 2100 GMT Meteors and a Galaxy
I set up my DSLR camera to take repeated 6 minute exposures at 18mm focal length and ISO 6400, in an attempt to catch Lyrid meteors. I did not catch any but had enough photos to try a large stack. I stacked them 10 at a time in Sequator and stacked the 10 stacks in DSS. I finished in GraXpert and GIMP to show the head and parts of Draco.
In parallel, I set up the Seestar S50 to photograph the galaxy NGC3607 in Leo. Although I ran the telescope for about 2 hours, star trailing left me with an integration of only 18 minutes. I only photographed the nucleus. The fainter galaxy is NGC3608.
April 13th 2100 GMT Galaxy NGC2903
The weather forecast was for clear sky but there was a lot of thin cloud in the south east. I wanted to photograph Markarians Chain but it was too hazy.
I photographed the galaxy NGC2903 with the Seestar S50. However, after two minutes, I had star trailing, that ruined the image, although the galaxy did not look too bad.
I rebooted and decided to have a go at Makarian's Chain again. First I used Jupiter as a sighter and noticed that one moon had disappeared behind, in front of Jupiter or in the planet's shadow.
I had star trailing, due to cloud, but it didn't ruin the image, well not at first. However, it took a very long time to stack 8 minutes worth of data and it did not complete.
April 13th 1945 GMT Planets
I tried to capture Venus with the Seestar S50 but it did not work.
I took two videos of Jupiter with the intention of stacking and combining them.
April 13th 0800 GMT Sun
I took a full disc video of the sun with the Seestar S50, with the intention of stacking to produce a still image.
April 13th 2345 GMT Globular cluster M53
I photographed the globular star cluster M53 with the Seestar S50. I did a 38 minute integration run, terminated by cloud. I stacked two intermediate images in Deep Sky Stacker and finished with GraXpert and GIMP. This latest version shows more outer stars than the original attempt.
With lots of moving cloud, I decided to try to capture sunspots with my binoculars and filters. I found two and made a drawing.
April 15th 2100 GMT Meteors and a Galaxy
I set up my DSLR camera to take repeated 6 minute exposures at 18mm focal length and ISO 6400, in an attempt to catch Lyrid meteors. I did not catch any but had enough photos to try a large stack. I stacked them 10 at a time in Sequator and stacked the 10 stacks in DSS. I finished in GraXpert and GIMP to show the head and parts of Draco.
In parallel, I set up the Seestar S50 to photograph the galaxy NGC3607 in Leo. Although I ran the telescope for about 2 hours, star trailing left me with an integration of only 18 minutes. I only photographed the nucleus. The fainter galaxy is NGC3608.
April 13th 2100 GMT Galaxy NGC2903
The weather forecast was for clear sky but there was a lot of thin cloud in the south east. I wanted to photograph Markarians Chain but it was too hazy.
I photographed the galaxy NGC2903 with the Seestar S50. However, after two minutes, I had star trailing, that ruined the image, although the galaxy did not look too bad.
I rebooted and decided to have a go at Makarian's Chain again. First I used Jupiter as a sighter and noticed that one moon had disappeared behind, in front of Jupiter or in the planet's shadow.
I had star trailing, due to cloud, but it didn't ruin the image, well not at first. However, it took a very long time to stack 8 minutes worth of data and it did not complete.
April 13th 1945 GMT Planets
I tried to capture Venus with the Seestar S50 but it did not work.
I took two videos of Jupiter with the intention of stacking and combining them.
I took a full disc video of the sun with the Seestar S50, with the intention of stacking to produce a still image.
April 9th 2100 GMT Constellation Shoot
I re-attempted the shoot from the evening before, with the correct settings on the DSLR camera of 18mm focal length, ISO 1600 and 30 seconds exposure. First was Coma Berenices.
I also photographed Canes Venatici.
While performing the shoot, I saw a bright, magnitude 0 Anthelion meteor flash from Virgo north east through Bootes. I also saw a faint, magnitude 3 sporadic meteor, with a short trail appearing on the Virgo/Come Berenices border. I don't think I had ever seen so many satellites in one session before.
April 8th 2110 GMT Constellations and Meteors
My phone was broken, so I was unable to use the Seestar S50. I used the DSLR camera instead. I accidentally set it to 55mm focal length, ISO 1600 and 30 seconds exposure when I intended to use 18mm focal length.
I aimed between Arcturus and Denebola to try to capture the constellation of Coma Berenices.
I aimed underneath Leo to try to capture the constellation of Sextans.
I aimed at the constellation of Canes Venatici.
Unfortunately, due to mis-setting the camera, I did not capture the targets and had a lot of star trailing, so could not use any photos.
While the camera was there, I saw a magnitude 2 meteor pass south west from Coma Berenices, underneath Leo.
I then aimed the camera towards the Virgo/Libra area at 18mm focal length, ISO 6400 and 6 seconds exposure, in an attempt to capture meteors. I was hoping to catch some Anthelion meteors.
As a by-product, I stacked 20 images using Deep Sky Stacker to capture the constellation of Virgo. I removed the haze using GraXpert and GIMP.
Unfortunately, I did not catch any meteors.
April 8th 1940 GMT Venus
Venus was low in the dusk sky and I photographed it with the DSLR camera at 300mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/200 second exposure. It did not work, as I did not nail the focus.
April 6th 1915 GMT Venus
I tried to photograph Venus with the Seestar S50 but it could not find it. As there were no stars visible in the sky, I could not use one as a "sighter".
April 6th 1300 GMT Sun
The Seestar S50 was unable to find the sun. As I was recovering from a bad back, I did not use my heavy telescope, so observed the sun through my binoculars and filters. The sunspots had rotated but one had also become larger.
April 5th 2030 GMT Leo Galaxy Triplet
I photographed the Leo Galaxy Triplet with the Seestar S50. I processed a single integration of 152 minutes and tidied in GraXpert and GIMP.
April 5th 1320 GMT Sun
I did a binocular check of the sun using my filters I saw 3 sunspots and made a drawing.
April 2nd 0820 GMT Sun
I took full disc and closeup videos of the sun with the Seestar S50. There were lots of small sunspots.
