Solar Maximum 2012

University College Corks very own Dr. Paul Callanan talks about this years solar maximum, coronal mass ejections and the resulting displays on earth, known as the aurora borealis.

Paul is also in charge of the X-Ray Binaries Research Group in UCC

Astronomical Animator

Here is where I work at home. I suppose in a way, my workstation counts as part of my astronomy equipment as well. It wasn't long ago that astronomers were using film cameras in order to do astrophotography, and now anyone can have a computer capable of processing extremely high resolution images that rival those produced by NASA. How far we've come indeed. Needless to say, it still isn't cheap.

Thankfully, being an animator I had already accumulated my equipment and didn't need to make the additional investment when I caught the astronomy bug. I'm very glad that it survived my college years.

It's on my trusty system where I created the title image for my blog.

Honestly, it's rarely this tidy.

Lunar 7 - Moon Sandwich

I didn't realise it before but the images I stitched together make great photos themselves.
With a little extra sharpening and for your enjoyment, here they are;

OTA: 120mm Achromatic Refractor

Camera: Nikon D3100 14.2mp

Mount: CG-4 mount

Exposures: 12

Exposure: 1/30sec approx

ISO: 100

OTA: 120mm Achromatic Refractor

Camera: Nikon D3100 14.2mp

Mount: CG-4 mount

Exposures: 12

Exposure: 1/30sec approx

ISO: 100

I've got to say, although Registax is dealing with much of the chromatic aberration, I'm getting some very nice results with my Celestron achromat. I've got to big up the William Optics focuser too, of course.

Lunar 6 - Success with Registax 6

I think I've finally made my peace with Registax 6 and I'm getting some decent results! Had really great seeing conditions in Cork last night and thanks to my new WO crayford on my scope I could finally get things in amazing focus.

This image is a mozaic of two stacked AVI videos at around four seconds each. Stacked in Registax and stitched together and colour corrected in Photoshop.

OTA: 120mm Achromatic Refractor

Camera: Nikon D3100 14.2mp

Mount: CG-4 mount

Exposures: 24

Exposure: 1/30sec approx

ISO: 100

Lunar 5 - Half-ish Waxing Gibbous Moon

Here's a single frame from my Nikon D3100 on prime focus. Nice result for single frame I thought.

OTA: 120mm Achromatic Refractor

Camera: Nikon D3100 14.2mp

Mount: CG-4 mount

Exposures: 1

Exposure: 1/30sec approx

ISO: 100

Standby for some satcking!