Went out this eveing at around 10pm and set up the webcam with the scope. I tried imaging mars, satarn and serious. After getting used to the webcam i was about to stick in the barlow and try for a decent image of Saturn. At no surprise my laptops battery took it's last breath, so i had to pack it up. I grabbed the tri-pod and took a few exposures of the sky hoping to catch a meteor. I imaged the milkyway with 30, 1min & 3min exposures. I had a great look at m31,m32 and m110 at which in one stage i was looking at all 3 in the same FOV. As the Aurora was looking like a no show i took an image of Mars and M45 which to be honest turned out crap. The wind chill was bloody horrible and my hands were stinging so im gona call it a night until 2:30am to which im gona head out to the country to watch the moon rise and image Jupitar and the moon which are also very close

Nice pictures but just one question .... how long did you have to stand still for that pic of you with Taurus in the background?

BB

I stood for a cold, still 30secs lol I went for that part of the sky because of m45 and mars

Nice pictures but just one question .... how long did you have to stand still for that pic of you with Taurus in the background?

BB

lol was going to ask for the same thing

Nice images conor

That's a lovely photo of yourself Conor.

OK folks, name the constellation directly behind Conor's head?

Limavady

Caught the Pleides quite well actually.

That's a lovely photo of yourself Conor.

OK folks, name the constellation directly behind Conor's head?

Aries and/or TRiangulum.

BTW, just noticed that you caught the Andromeda quite nicely there!

BB

Thanks Guys

Hope you don't mind Conor, but I took the liberty of drawing in the constellations very roughly on your image.
Behind Conor are:
Triangulum, Aries and Pisces.

Sorry Mr. Power, I'm afraid your entry is invalid.

Aww now thats neat :wink: I like that alot. Any chance you could email it over to me

Behind Conor are:
Triangulum, Aries and Pisces.

Well two out of three ain't bad!

BB

Done!

BTW, I would recommend that you edit your post above and remove your e-mail address asap. Might get spammed otherwise if it got picked up by one of these automatic searches.

Regards.

Thats a great session you had last night. I think your images are excellent and i especially like the one with you and the Tal 1...nice one!

Great report Martin. Well im just in and got these few images. I tracked down alot of Messiars with the good olf faithful binos and used C1 for abit aswell. Lovely sky. Oh and earlier about 6pm i seen a very bright bit of space debris falling and burning up. Was about mag -2

Looks like you had another great session with the binos and Tal1. I think the last image is fantastic!!! Had a very late one last night myself.

I stood for a cold, still 30secs lol I went for that part of the sky because of m45 and mars

One thing you might like to experiment with for those type of shots is using the flash, or even just a torch.

Basically set the flash to go off at the start of the exposure when you are posing, and then when there is no light on you can relax or even walk away and let the exposure continue for the starlight.

You do need to be careful is there is any ambient light from streets and houses if you walk out of shot as that can cause you to show up as a ghostlike image wandering about. Cameras remember bright things not dark things. Though you can work that into an artistic shot as well if you like.

The result gives you a well lit and defined picture of yourself and strong stars in the background. This does take a bit of work though. In the image you posted you are a little out of focus (and so is the scope so its not just you shivering!). You need to experiment to find the best combination of composition and depth of field so that you are in focus as well as the stars.

Oh and doing this really ruins your dark adaption, so dont try it in the moddle of an observing session!

Cheers,
~Albert

Hi Conor,

Just clicked on the weather link you give at the bottom of your posts. Love the section on Satilite images. I'll add them to my Favorites...... Er.... might even learn to read them some day

Damon

Thanks albert for the advice!
Im glad it helped you