I
like to do Astronomical Observing, from my backyard, using binoculars.
And have developed a diversion of going out back and sitting in my
chair and taking in the sky night sky on most clear nights. For some
unexplained reason, with my dyslexic mind I have taken a liking to
star hopping,which is quite fun in the 4deg fov of the binoculars.
The washed out sky, leaves just the important stars needed for
navigation, and it is easy to locate Messier objects,
and if not see them, at least detect their presence. On the occasions
when I visit a dark site, I can very easily find, and locate dozens of
objects, and spend my time observing instead of looking at charts. In
binoculars or a telescope planets are wonderful and the stars and are
always pretty, like diamonds, ever changing and sparkling, observing
star clusters even from my yard, is always a far more pleasing
aesthetic experience than even Hubble images. Deep space objects are
unfortunately a different experience, where any but the brightest are
only faint smudges, or completely invisible.
( I live in a suburb outside New York City, on the light pollution
charts I am in a Red Zone, which better than the white zone 5 blocks
from my house.. they don't bother to further subdivide white zones,
which get incredibly washed out as you get closer to the center of a large city, or a shopping center )
Battle between the octopus and the megalopolis
So
for fun (when I have the energy) I do battle with the Megalopolis. And
it does take some energy, I wheel out my 3 legged telescope from the
garage, 8 sets of wires, and the hoards of attachments
(camera,eps,finder, telrad ,dew heater, computer, software,polar
scope,fan..). The neighbors take their kids inside, suspicious of the
old muttering man staring at the blank sky, battling an invisible
monster, taking pictures of invisible objects. Teenagers wait for me to
fall asleep so they can loot the battle field. ... Getting a little
carried away, actually no one other than my immediate neighbors notice. I
have been observing with my telescope in the backyard for 12 years and
has no one has ever bothered it. The surprising
thing is that with a camera, and a modest setup, some processioning
software and, taking a lot of 30-90sec subs, I can get views somewhat
nicer than the photos in my old Burnham's Celestial Handbook, Just
about any object in the universe that passes through my small patch of
sky I am able to get a decent view of. It turns out the
Megalopolis while casting its light shadow on the sky, pushes you to
get some unexpectedly nice results, and it is the Octopus of gadgets
wires and cables that is more of a problem.
Some of My gadgets
AstroToaster I
wrote this application to allow me to Observe DSOs using my DSLR, I
enjoy watching the image develop out of darkness as the light is
collected. ( this AstroToaster is a newer version
of the Observing ToolBar for DSS, it is now a free standing application
and does not need DSS to be runing )
AstroToaster
is a freewareapplication for obtaining semi-live views of astronomical
images using a DSLR, CCD (or any camera that can produce static
astronomical images)
AstroToaster
uses the Deep Sky Stacker (DSS) Processing Engine. It accomplish
what DSSLive does, but using the full capabiblities of DeepSkyStacker. and has a Viewer with easy to use color and light enhancement tools.
- The camera drops image files into a 'monitoring' folder, and they are automatically processed and continuously stacked and updated into a viewer window - You can use darks, flats etc. - Color adjustments, levels, curves are re-applied automatically to the refreshed image in the viewer - It performs a complete align and re-stacking of the images instead of a running average - It uses DeepSkyStacker's engine and settings, to perform the processing - You can edit and tweak, stacked images from earlier in the session, while acquiring and processing a new image I have found this to be a fun application for astronomy, you can download it from the Link below.
The effect of stacking and calibration on a Sequence of 10 one minute images ( detail of the Eagle Nebula )
Sim Picheloup's "couch Potato binochair" This
I purchased this in a kit from Sim, ( I don't know if he makes these
any more, he was getting on in his years when I spoke to him ) It is kind of a semi - DIY kind of a thing, I was able modify and adjust it for comfort, and make very steady.
Ice Pack Cooler for my DSLR
I made this for using the camera in the summer, to keep the signal/noise values manageable in the images. ( I end up using all year long, because the consistent temperature allows me to get away with using fewer sets of Darks ) Needless to say the camera and everything else is well wrapped up in plastic liners and has desicants to keep things dry. I have since upgraded with solid insulation and synthetic Ice with a phase change temperature of -15C, which keeps the sensor even cooler
