20110531 Saturn

Didn't really take any picture of Saturn for very long, now I only have my Ranger again and the iOptron Cube was sold, so I've to go back to hand tracking with my Manfrotto 410 geared head.

To my surprise, I can still manage hand tracking at up to 2400mm manually... guess what, tracking and focusing at the same time is not a simple trick, it takes patience and a lot of patience...

Still love the raw and small image from the eyepiece, it's lovely and enjoyable, the wonderful thing of amateur astronomy. Not even Hubble images can rival!

0010 (GMT+8), with 2x barlows at 960mm focal length:-


0014 (GMT+8), with 5x powermate at 2400mm focal length:-


Taken with my lovely 13+ years old Tele Vue Ranger!

Telescopes that you owned more than once

Equipment comes and goes, it's a matter of fact if you stay in amateur astronomy for more than a couple of years. During the buying and selling, you might find that you could actually own a telescope or a certain piece of equipment more than once. I've a few such experiences.

1. Borg 45ED

Strictly speaking, I didn't own it twice, but I owned one Borg 45ED and one Borg 45ED II. They're very similar and the only difference is the focal length but you cannot tell from their appearance.

It's unique in the sense that it should be the smallest APO in the world. It's small and it's versatile. I used them mainly for solar imaging with my Solarmax 40, and it's useful for guiding and some real wide field scanning. High power observation is not useful due to the very limited aperture. It's so portable that you have no reason to keep it at home for whatever trip.

2. Celestron C5

This is a very unique telescope. It's an unique combination of size, weight, portability and performance and price! You cannot get any better than this given its portability. You can do some really "serious" work with the advanced video cameras these days, for example, my C5 Jupiter taken with a DBK exceeded my C8 Jupiter taken with a ToUCam Pro!

It's so light that any mount would do the job.

3. Various Cameras

I have owned more than five ToUCam Pro, some keeping their life as a color camera and some were modified to black and white. I sold them all until I bought some DMK/DBK.

I have owned three DMK/DBK, and they're really very nice cameras.

I have owned many Lumenera LU070M, they're perfect for their price, and I bought them as a batch from a closed research lab. They exceed the performance of a similar DMK with the higher dynamic range, bigger chip/pixel, etc.

Items for Sales

Local (Hong Kong) buyer preferred, price also listed in HKD. If you're interested, please let me know, foreign buyers please ask:

1. Celestron C5 OTA in silver color (i.e. Nexstar) [HOLD]

with Vixen style dovetail, 1.25" visual back, 25mm Celestron Plossl

$2500 HKD, optional Astrotech 1.25" dielectric diagonal available at $300 more.

2. Lumenera LU070M with integral 1.25" adapter

640x480 monochrome 1/3" CCD (bigger than DMK 21) [HOLD]
12-bit (better than DMK 21 again)
60 fps
USB 2.0 Interface
Ready to be used with 1.25" focuser, comes with a wide field lens

$2700 HKD.

3. Canon 100mm f/2.0 USM with hood and Hoya filter, no box [HOLD]

Show sign of use, some dust inside the lens but does not affect performance, $2000 HKD.

2011 May 16 Goodbye H-alpha Solar Imaging

This morning, I packed up my Solarmax 40 with BF10 + reducer, the iOptron GPS Cube as well as the Lumenera.

They were passed to someone just a few minutes ago.

Thank you for their services, and they brought some really great moments for me. I love to play with them under the sun, and I managed to get a picture good enough to be shown in a local exhibition, and a US dealer even picked one of my pictures in their printed catalog :-)

20110509 Sun

While no one show interest in my solar gear, I will continue to use it. The sky is not very good today, we have cloud floating around and the transparency is like 7/10 when it's cleared, seeing like 3/10.

1440 (GMT+8):-


1441 (GMT+8):-

Astromart...

They want money from me again, and that's what I saw this morning:-

"You have run out of sponsor ads"

"Your account is required to purchase support ads to use Astromart. Click Here to go to the featured ad purchasing page."

I believe that I paid no long ago, but then I was asked to pay again... Astromart tax again? I wonder whether I will pay... so if you have response my ad. there, let me know via email or some other means. Thanks.

Why Solar Observation?

A few obvious reasons:

1. It's the most obvious object in the sky.
2. It's very dynamic.
3. It requires only moderate equipments.
4. It can be done in any place for it penetrates light pollution very well.
5. I want to sleep at night for most of the time.
6. It's simple to do.
7. It's just beautiful!

20110413 Sun

This is the first time that I setup my 2nd C5 for imaging on the iOptron Cube, I don't know whether the problem was from high frequency seeing or it was the vibration from the mount, but then at 1250mm, I guess the chance for tracking vibration was not very likely.

20110410 Sun

I managed to get back home early enough to catch some sunshine! No more aperture blocking since I've moved my Ranger to the hacked side of the iOptron Cube. The hacked side is not as stable as the official side but then it works far better in the summer.

1526 (GMT+8), with reducer:-


1529 (GMT+8), with 2x barlows:-


1530 (GMT+8), with 2x barlows:-


1531 (GMT+8), with 2x barlows:-


Poor seeing at 2/10, transparency like 4/10. The sun is more active these days and it's always changing and a fun to capture.

20110409 Sun

Summer is coming, and the sun will be travelling westward so that I won't be able to shoot the sun from inside my home without some adjustments. Today, I've to open the other side of the window to shoot and the angle of view is very strange making centering of the solar disc a bit more difficult. Right now the solar disc was being blocked partially by the upper side of the window and so I'll have to wait around 30 minutes I guess (it's now 1256 GMT+8).

There's a large QRF as I can see with the partially blocked image from the display right now. A medium sized prominence loop could be detected as well.

Since I've to go out, I really have no time to wait for complete clearing of the blocked aperture, so here we go:



Taken at 1322 (GMT+8).

20110402 Indoor Stargazing

Pulled out my C5, the first task is to tune the collimation. I didn't do that for quite long and so it took me for more than 10 minutes... after that, it's good enough for casual observation, but for planet imaging, it would take a little bit longer to refine further.

The iOptron paddle is very user friendly, this is the very first time I use it on stuff other than the sun! Despite it has no numeric keypad, navigation is very fine and easy. On choosing deep sky objects, let say Messier objects, it will skip all those numbers which were not visible automatically and that speeds up the process a lot. You don't have to go through 0-9 one by one. Choosing a named star is similar. Choosing Sirius involves only a few key presses, I love this mount even more now! Tracking is very stable at 96x, no noticable vibration at all. GOTO is pretty accurate especially when you have a bright star around for "sync".

M42 is a very fine sight despite the heavy light pollution and the poor transparency, the fuzzy patch is very small and dim, but then the trapezium splits very nicely with a 20mm Japanese Widescan. M41 is good with a 13mm Nagler, it is not as great when obsering with a 20mm Japanese Widescan due to the serious light pollution and hazy sky. The sky was darkened with the higher magnification and it certainly helps.


--

Here's some Chinese notes:

好耐無試過室內睇星, 有薄薄一層雲, GOTO 去 M41, 咩都見唔倒, GOTO 去 Sirius 再 sync 返台 mount, 再 GOTO 返 M41, 低倍目鏡見倒幾粒星, 換高倍少少, 再深呼吸少少, 即刻成地都係星星!! 果種見倒與見唔倒之間既感覺正係肉眼觀星既樂趣~

First night of my 3rd C5

The first one was sold but I soon wanted to get another one.

The second one was a lemon and I soon returned it.

The third one has arrived for a few weeks maybe, but I just managed to get some star lights to fall on it. I colliminated briefly and stars were pinpoint.

Cloud moved in and out so that I cannot really fine tune the collimation, or I can really observe with it. But at least I know it's not a lemon. The last one could not form any decent image even for day light target.

Wish that I can have time to really try it out, it shall stay with me for a pretty long time.

20110321 Sun

Thank God for the sunshine today, it has been so wet these days and the sunshine should drive the humidity lower.

Prominence activities were pretty good today, and a small but strong group was at the bottom and a pretty long one could be seen near the top. AR1175 could be seen clearly and signs of new (or remnant?) active region could be seen over the solar disc.

Seeing pretty poor at 2/10, transparency 3/10.

1522 (GMT+8):-


1523 (GMT+8):-


Closer up:-

1525 (GMT+8):-


1526 (GMT+8):-


1527 (GMT+8):-

20110314 Sun

I tried to setup my telescope twice today, the first attempted failed since cloud covered after I setup my stuff... After seeing the completely covered sky, I packed up my stuff... and then after around half an hour, sunshine came in my home and I setup my stuff again.

Seeing 4/10, transparency 2/10.

1458 (GMT+8) with reducer:-


1500 (GMT+8) with 2x:-


1501 (GMT+8) with 2x:-


1502 (GMT+8) with 2x:-


1503 (GMT+8) with 2x:-

20110307 Sun

The sun is very active today, we have several big active regions around and among them, I have taken two close-ups which includes AR1164 and AR1166.

Seeing 3/10, transparency 3/10.

1523 (GMT+8):-


1526 (GMT+8) with 2x barlows:-


1527 (GMT+8) with 2x barlows:-

20110228 Sun

This is the last day of Februry 2011, time is going very fast but cloud had been moving slow. I finally got some sunshine today.

AR1164 is going strong, seeing 6/10, transparency 4/10.

1427 (GMT+8) with reducer:-


1430 (GMT+8) with 2x barlows:-

Another C5 is coming

The tracking service of Hong Kong Post reveals that the package has arrived Hong Kong. I might be able to fetch it on Wednesday morning, it is an insured parcel and so I'll have to go to take it myself and it won't be delivered to my home.

It's again a Nexstar gray tube model, with a Vixen compatible dovetail. I guess it's still a Made in USA model. I'll also get a 1.25" visual back as well as a Astrotech dielectric diagonal, a 25mm eyepiece is included as well.

Actually, I don't need that diagonal and eyepiece, so if you're interested, let me know and we might be able to come up with a good deal :-)

20110207 Sun

I've been out of town for a couple of days, and I have some observations there for a few nights. The sky there was not particularly good, but I've conducted some low power observation with my Canon 10x30 IS as well as a few short exposures with my Canon 450D on my Takahashi TG-SP 2. I'll write some separate entries for them later.

Back to the Sun, AR1153 is around when I observe today. Seeing 3/10, transparency 5/10. No big activities.

1521 (GMT+8):-

Going for a family trip

Chinese New Year is coming and this is a special one for me since I'll be going for a trip with my family. We're going to some villages and hopefully I'll have some better sky than Hong Kong. Since I'll be going with the kids, I couldn't bring anything heavy. What I will take are the following:

1. Gitzo G160 with Manfrotto 410 head
2. Takahashi TG-SP II without counter weight
3. DIY battery box with 4 AA Sanyo eneloops
4. Canon 450D with kit lens, timer release
5. Canon 100mm f2.0
6. Canon 10x30 IS
7. Pocket Star Atlas, S&T Publishing

The TG-SP II is small, and it can take my Canon 450D without any additional counter weight, the motor compartment is a built-in counter weight and I found that it's heavy enough to balance the 450D with either the kit lens or the 100mm f2.0! Also, since it takes only 6V, and I found that it works without problem at 4.8V so power supply is not a problem as well. Visual observation would be done with a Canon 10x30 IS.

Weather forecast is favorable:

http://www.haotq.com/d7_quanzhou.html

20100131 Sun

Lunar new year is coming.

Seeing 3/10, transparency 3/10.



AR1150 is probably the most attractive feature despite it's small. My elder daughter Alby came and had a look with the 20mm widescan Type III, she can tell me nearly all the features that I've captured. I also had a look with my 13mm Nagler Type 6.