September heralds the onset of Autumn, longer nights and of course the equinox skycamp up in Kelling Heath, Norfolk. The main weekend dates this year were Friday 14th to Monday 17th.
This year it was just myself, leaving the family back at home. Of course my 'other family' (telescope, tent and equipment) all came with!
A New Tent
This year I decided on investing a better tent to store my equipment and have somewhere to sit down at the laptop. The past few utility tents simply broke when I tried to put them up. What I wanted was something that I could put up in minutes but was robust enough to last many years.
Visiting a local camping equipment outlet, I managed to find the perfect solution, the insta-tourer4. More squat than a utility tent, but easy to set up in minutes. Trying it out in the garden, it certainly was easier to set up and take down, perfect for skycamp.
Equipment
Just like the past few years I set up the wifi system. The wifi network consists of a Belkin USB network hub connected to a Dlink wifi router, hence almost any USB device attached to the Belkin box can be controlled wirelessly.
Both the Autostar (via a Serial to USB adaptor) and the motor focuser (via a shoestring astronomy USB adaptor) were controlled wirelessly from my laptop.
This year I just took the six inch LXD55 AR6 refractor as I was only staying for two nights. I also brought along a new two inch eyepiece - a Vixen lanthanum 42mm which I purchased earlier this year at Astrofest.
New Camera
Earlier this year I upgraded my digital camera. I purchased a Panasonic Gf3 Micro 4/3 camera with two lenses. Now, the great thing about this camera is that it has interchangeable lenses. This means that with the right adaptors you can hook it up to a telescope, as well as attach other non-Panasonic lenses. So rather than purchase specialised Panasonic-only adaptors, I simply got a 4/3 micro to Olympus OM adaptor (purchased from a company called GRB Griturn). This meant that all my Olympus lenses and telescope adaptors were resurrected and could be used again.
Earlier this year (see post) I used the GF3 to take shots of Venus, Jupiter and Moon conjunction. The camera has a full manual mode but unfortunately no B (Bulb) setting so the maximum exposure length of time it can be set to is only one minute. However, this should still be long enough to capture various deep sky objects with a view to stacking multiple shots together in order to bring out more detail.
Friday
Despite the windy conditions when I arrived at Kelling in the mid-afternoon, the tent was set up in just a few minutes with nothing broken this time! The rest of the equipment was setup and I was ready for hopefully two nights of observing.
It wasn't until after 10pm when the skies eventually cleared and the scope setup procedure completed ready for a night's viewing. After spending a few hours observing I decided to try out imaging with the camera.
Armed with an accurately polar aligned telescope, remote control via a laptop, a planetarium program and the new camera, I set out to capture various celestial objects.
To start off with I took a few shots piggyback on the telescope. Just one minute later I saw the results... the Milky Way captured on the screen. That's is what so great with digital cameras nowadays, you don't have to wait until you get the results back from a photo shop days later!
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| Perseus Area |
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| Cygnus Area |
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| Jupiter and Hyades - Taurus |
I then turned to prime focus imaging. First I found a bright star Aldebaran, then using a handy 'live view' utility on the camera, I focussed on the star using the motorised focus handset, an essential piece of equipment for anyone attempting to take images of the night sky.
To start off with I thought I would try a bright star cluster. The Pleiades were rising in the East so I pointed the telescope towards it, aligned the stars up in the camera viewfinder and fired off a one minute shot. I currently do not possess a remote camera controller, so to reduce camera shake I set the self-timer facility to two seconds. This was sufficiently long enough for the telescope to stop vibrating before the image was taken.
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| Pleiades M45 |
Saturday
The main event day is usually an eventful day, trade stands in the yellow field and talks going on throughout the afternoon. In the early evening the prize raffle took place, which is always popular amongst attendees of the camp.
It looked like the skies were going to be clear from early evening, so after an hour or so resting in the lodge, it was time to go out to the field.
From the previous night's successful camera setup, I was ready to take on the deep sky objects. I proceeded to image a number of deep sky objects. Some of these objects did not show up very well on the camera view
screen so I could not see if they were in camera field of view. The
technique I adopted was to take a one minute test shot and see if the
object was captured in the camera's field of view. If the object was not
central then I would guess which direction I needed to move the scope
via the Autostar handset then take another shot until I was satisfied
with the result. I would then proceed to take about five one minute
shots before moving on to the next object. The images have been processed.
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| NGC 887 - Perseus Double Cluster |
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M27 - Dumbbell Nebula - Vulpecular
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| Eastern Veil (NGC!!!!) - Cygnus |
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| M31 - Andromeda Galaxy - Andromeda |
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| M1 - Crab Nebula - Taurus |
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| M42 - Orion Nebula - Orion |
Jupiter was rising ever-higher in the East so I decided to try out my set up on the planet instead of using my ToUcam.
At just prime focus (f8) Jupiter's disc was tiny, so I attempted to pump up the power. Unfortunately what was missing from my equipment itinerary was a high power barlow like a 4x powermate. So with my current equipment, I attached a two inch 2x two inch Barlow, another 1.5x one and a quarter inch Barlow, plus the prime focus adaptor and the camera adaptor. Amazingly I had enough length to rack the focuser back in order to get the planet in focus. Given the number of attachments and the length of the rack, the camera was almost a whole 12 inches back from the end of the telescope. Luckily the balance of the scope wasn't too much affected and Jupiter still tracked nicely in the camera's field of view.
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| Jupiter |
With the rising of Orion looming through the trees I took a few shots of M42 and a couple of piggyback shots. It was time to call it a night.
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| Orion |
On the whole it was a very successful and fulfilling two nights of Astronomy and was looking forward to start processing my images over the next few months.
Sunday
It was time for the long journey home, but not before in the afternoon strolling down to a local cafe for lunch with friends and rambling to nearby Weyborne beach.
To summarise it was a great skycamp, probably one sof the most successful for many years in terms of organising (well done Loughton AS) ... oh and of course the clear nights!
