I haven’t been on here for a while (that’s an understatement!), I could blame the weather but I think that’s only half the story. After building the observatory I struggled to find the time to use it and seemed to have only sporadic clear spells so I’d spend an evening trimming the focus and alignment then not get another clear night for weeks.

I’ve spent some nights in the observatory since finishing the build last year, but I couldn’t get auto-guiding working even after investing in a dedicated guide scope and haven’t really produced anything worth shouting about.  In the last couple of weeks I think I finally have the guiding fixed and have successfully guided for over 3mins with only slightly eggy stars.  Imaging over 5mins totally over exposes due to the light pollution here in South Wales but I think if I can get enough frames at 3mins I should be able to start producing some good images for the gallery.  My collimation is slightly out and I need to invest in a Baader MPCC (not the first time I’ve said that) as the stars at the edge of the field of view suffer badly from coma.

All the images I have at the moment are waiting for processing so I’ll get them on here as time allows, but for now it’s good to be back

Comet Garradd August 2011

Another view of Comet Garradd Aug 2011

M81 and M82 14x120secs at iso 800

M101 showing Supernova PTF11kly

Not the best images I’ve taken but I’m working on it. The M101 image was taken between clouds to ensure I had an image of the supernova before it fades. Comet Garradd is getting brighter but not expected to peak until early next year. If it makes it to Mag 6 in September, as predicted, it could become the photographers favourite object for a month or so Funny how the one image has it green and the other blue, its all in the processing so maybe I need to redo them.