Our Moon

With the lighter night's, fast approaching. I've been tinkering with my QHY5 and videoing the Moon.

The Moon is one subject that, thankfully doesn't require a dark sky. And I have noticed before. How some of the best seeing can be found during the early hours, or, during the later part of the day. Around two hours before Sun-set.

The image's which you will see on here were all taken through a 10" Newtonian from the British company Orion Optics http://www.orionoptics.co.uk/ in Crewe Cheshire.

The OTA is mounted on top of my Losmandy G11 and I'm using a Red filter (W25) which is helping to reduce the effects of poor seeing.

The image is of Copernicus. Copernicus is a huge 93km diameter crater that is easily visible through small binoculars.

I took this image on 2011-04-12 on the 50th Anniversary of Yuri Gargarin and his solo manned space flight.

This image was captured around 19:45 hrs UT through a x2 Barlow. You can also see, in the same field the Carpathian mountains which is the small rocky out crop below Copernicus. Also in this image is Eratosthenes. Which is visible to the  right, with three peaks visible in the crater.

The Moon is a lovely object, and It is one subject that I will return to with this telescope now the night's are getting lighter, and I can't do any CCD imaging because of work.

Enjoy...

Messier 3 a Globular clsuter in Canes Venatici

Messier 3 is one of the Northern sky's show piece globular star clusters. Lying at a distance of 48,500 lt-yrs. And it is an easy object for anybody with a small telescope, or binoculars.

M3 was  discovered by Messier in 1764, and looked on May 3rd of that year
"Nebula without star: centre brilliant, gradually fading away; round. In a dark sky, visible in a telescope of 1-foot"

This image was taken during a clear window on 2011 April 2nd, from my observing site here in East Cheshire. The seeing wasn't brilliant, and this was evident when using my Hartman mask to focus on a nearby star.

The exposure is made up of 16x60 second exposures, and it is the best out of 30x60 second exposures.

Imaged using the Orion 200-800 F4 "AG" and guided using PHD a QHY5 and William Optics ZS66SD.

The image could be better. And I will return to M3 again, on a night of better seeing.