Astrophotography

Welcome to the ASV Astrophotography Section

Section Director: Nicholas Jones, 0402 022 228, nicholas.jones5@gmail.com

 

Yahoo Group

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/asv_astrophotography/

• The Yahoo Group is our main communication channel for announcing events and updates as well as providing a discussion forum for members.
• Even if you don’t want to receive all the emails, members are encouraged to sign-up for at least the ‘Special Notices’ to receive key messages about events and section activities. You can also sign-up for a ‘Daily Digest’ rather than receive every message as an individual email.

Facebook Group

We now have a facebook group called "ASV Astrophotography"

ASV Astrophotography

When requesting to join please provide your membership number 

 

Section meetings

Save the following dates in your calendar for the 2017 section meetings. The topics for the section meetings are yet to be determined. All section meetings take place at the ASV Lodge

 

• Sunday 12th February 2:30pm - 4:30pm
• Sunday 12th March 2:30pm - 4:30pm
• Sunday 9th April 2:30pm - 4:30pm
• Sunday 14th May 2:30pm - 4:30pm  Topic: Coonabarabran Trip report and image presentations - Nicholas Jones, Tom Fowler et al.
• Sunday 11th June 2:30pm - 4:30pm
• Sunday 9th July 2:30pm - 4:30pm
• Sunday 6th August 2:30pm - 4:30pm
• Sunday 10th September 2:30pm - 4:30pm
• Sunday 8th October 2:30pm - 4:30pm
• Sunday 5th November 2:30pm - 4:30pm
• Sunday 10th December 2:30pm - 5:30pm

 

Notable images from our section members

 

 

M16 - The Eagle Nebula in narrowband

Terry Robison produced this wonderful narrowband image of M16 from his suburban home in Melbourne.

The Eagle Nebula is located in the constellation Serpens, 6,500-7000 light years away, and stretches approximately 70 by 55 light years. It is formed around a star cluster that is around 2 million years young. The nebula itself is a 5.5 million year old cloud of dust and molecular hydrogen gas, and is thought to contain several star forming regions.

Phillippe Loys de Cheseaux discovered the Eagle Nebula in the mid 18th century. But his original description was only the cluster of stars. Charles Messier independently rediscovered it in 1764 as part of his catalogue, giving it the catchy name of M16.

 Located in the top left hand side of the image, there is an incredible looking structure known as the Stellar Spire. It is roughly 9.5 light years long. Cosmic sea horse?

Enjoy this amazing view while you can as both the Spire and the Pillars in the Eagle Nebula are already likely to be gone. 8500 years ago, a supernova explosion created massive shock waves moving through the nebula. This process would have taken thousands of years to sweep through the region, in the end, destroying the delicate structures.

If you access to a fairly modest low powered telescope, or even with a pair of binoculars, you will be able to view this nebula from a dark location. You should be able to see around twenty stars, surrounded by gas and dust.

Instruments Used:

Telescope: RC10 (RCOS), Camera:STL-11000 (SBIG), Mount:AP900 (Astro-Physics), Filters: Ha 7nm, SII 8.0 nm, OIII 8.5 nm (Baader Planetarium)

 Image Details:Resolution:0.804 arcsec/pixFocal length: 2309.84 mm (9.1) Pixel size:9.00 um Image processing with CCDStack and Photoshop.

 

Monitor Calibration

• There is a Spyder 4 Pro Monitor Calibration device available for short-term loan, which may help you calibrate the brightness and colour of your monitor for image processing. The unit should be returned to each section meeting at Parer St and can then be passed on to somebody else. It can also be handed over from one person to another in between as well.

Leon Mow Dark Sky Site

New Moon Weekends

• The LMDSS site has 240V power, clubrooms, showers, gas bbq, kettle, tank water and toilets.
• Any weekend with a promising weather forecast and not much moonlight will see a good number of people on the astrophotography field at LMDSS capturing images with a wide range of equipment. Because this is so weather dependent, people do not finalise plans until just a few days beforehand. The weather is often better at Heathcote (north of the divide) than in Melbourne so don’t make a decision not to go based on what you see out the window in town.
• Aside from at Star Parties, there are no formal activities organised at LMDSS but new members are welcome to attend and see other astrophotographers in action. It is helpful to announce to the Yahoo Group your plans to attend and ask if there is somebody who can show you what’s going on. Most astrophotographers will be busy for the first hour or so of the night as they get their equipment setup and running smoothly. If you can wait till after this setup period, they will be in a much better position to explain their equipment and how they are using it.

Piers and Storage Locker

• There are six permanent piers on the astrophotography field and a storage locker on the north side of the field. 
• The storage locker contains tools including full set of metric and imperial Allen Keys as well as a spare tripod and counterweight to suit EQ6 mounts.
• Three pier adapters are available for EQ6 mounts and are also kept in the storage locker along with the necessary nuts and bolts. First in first served but somebody on site can reserve one for somebody arriving later. Aside from at star parties, it would be unusual for all three pier adapters to be in use.
• If you would like to get your own pier adapters made to suit your mount, the template for the piers is available in the Files section of the Yahoo Group. Speak to the Section Director if you would like to seek funding for new pier adapters.
• There are 240V power outlets on the astrophotography field but you should bring a power board and a long extension lead to run to your equipment. There are occasional power outages (particularly on busy nights), so it is advisable to run your mount and other critical gear from a small 12V battery with a battery charger keeping it topped up. That way if the power does trip, the battery will keep your mount running until power is restored but the battery charger means you only need a small battery. A laptop can be plugged directly to the 240V supply as its own battery will keep it running during an outage.

Astrophotography Observatory at LMDSS

• The ASV has setup a fully functional observatory facility for all members, including beginners to use.
• Booking the dome. For those who have been trained can book this facility here:

http://asv.org.au/observatory

• A motorised 3m Sirius Dome houses an EQ6 mount with Vixen R200SS telescope and Canon 60Da camera with a laptop for computer control of the whole setup.
• Access to the observatory is available to those who been trained and assessed as competent (and trustworthy!).
• Training should be arranged with Phil Hart, James McHugh, Gavan Salter or Paul Litchen. Training sessions will be announced on the Yahoo Group but if you are interested you should also let us know via the group.
• Make sure you follow the printed instruction manual and sign the logbook and report any issues.
• Bring along a USB stick and you can take the image data captured home with you. Members are also encouraged to share captured image data so that others can try their hand at image processing.

Club Section

• Although not specifically for astrophotographers, feel free to gather informally at Club Section meetings (on the first and last Friday of the month, public holidays excepted) at the ASV Lodge  - check the calendar in Crux or the ASV website) to chew the fat about astronomy and photography. Bring along even beginner images to show and you will probably find a willing audience. You can also bring your equatorial mount along and practise polar alignment or focus in the backyard if the weather is good and might find others there who can help.

ASV Library

• The ASV Library at the Melbourne Observatory has many books on astrophotography which are free for members to borrow and are a great resource for beginners. You can see a list of the available books on the ASV website: http://asv.org.au/library
• The Library is open on nights of the general meetings in the Herbarium.

Make It Happen

• The Astrophotography Section is a network of people within the ASV. Many of the active members are fairly new to the hobby who can help each other along the journey. Members are encouraged to initiate their own informal gatherings to complement the formal monthly meetings at ASV Lodge or dark sky nights at Heathcote.
• So feel free to announce on the Yahoo Group your plans to attend a Friday night Club Section meeting at ASV Lodge or invite others to join you for a night of beginner astrophotography at a public location on your side of town. Even a small group of beginners can find many ways to help each other.