My Astronomy

 

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My Telescopes

My Main Telescope - C14 and Paramount ME

My new Paramount MyT and 8-inch Ritchey-Chretien Telescope

MyT Hand Controller

My Meade 12 inch SCT on a CGEM (Classic) Mount

My 4 inch Meade Refractor with Sky Watcher Guidescope and ZWO camera on a CGEM (Classic) Mount

Skywatcher Star Adventurer Mount with Canon 40D

 

My Solar setup using a DSLR and Mylar Filter on my ETX90

DSLR attached to ETX90. LiveView image of 2015 partial eclipse on Canon 40D

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About the Site

 I try to log my observing and related activities in a regular blog - sometimes there will be a delay but I usually catch up. An index of all my blogs is on the main menu at the top of the page with daily, weekly or monthly views. My Twitter feed is below. I am also interested in photograping wildlife when I can and there is a menu option above to look at some of my images. I try to keep the news feeds from relevant astronomical sources up to date and you will need to scroll down to find these.

The Celestron 14 is mounted on a Paramount ME that I have been using for about 10 years now - you can see that it is mounted on a tripod so is a portable set up. I still manage to transport it on my own and set it all up even though I have just turned 70! It will run for hours centering galaxies in the 12 minute field even when tripod mounted.

 

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Friday
Jul272018

Day 5 of the new observatory, Lunar Eclipse and Mars Opposition

The day started by getting the assistance I needed to get the roof on my new observatory. It took three of us to manhandle the three parts of the roof into the guiding slots. 

The observatory with its three roof sections in place.

The next stage is to add the motor and link the drive belt to the upper roof section.

 

The lunar eclipse seen from southern Spain was a stunning sight with a bright Mars just below it and to the west. This is the first time that , with the presence of a full Moon I could see the brilliance of the Miky Way. The Moon rose over the hills first and was hardly visible in its eclipsed state. 

The image below shows the Moon rising with Mars still behind the hills on the southern horizon.(iPhone)

 

 

The image below was taken with a Sony A58 DSLT and 75mm lens.

The image details are given below. Note that longer exposures would show trailing of Mars so I was unable to capture background detals in this tripod mounted shot.