2012-08-26

Obscured by clouds


Obscured by clouds
Originally uploaded by Mickut
The astronomical darkness has finally arrived. At the start of the new season I decided to try my luck with a small mosaic project of the North-America and Pelican nebulae as the objects are fairly bright and the darkness lasts only a short moment for now.
Last night was the first clear night with astronomical darkness lasting a bit under three hours. In four months the astronomical darkness should last for almost 12 hours, a significant difference there.

Via Flickr:
The famous North-America and Pelican nebulae are part of the same vast emission cloud, but the dark dusty clouds between us and the glowing gas shape the view to the familiar shapes.
LRGB 2x2 frame mosaic, 3x5min per channel and panel. Original frame at 100dpi would yield a nice 150x110 centimeter poster, but more light is needed for better SNR and color gradient corrections.

2012-08-07

Fitting the gear


Fitting the gear
Originally uploaded by Mickut
The future skycam and SQM housing for Kirkkonummen Komeetta observatory site is made of a 45deg 110mm sewer junction, end caps and clear acrylic domes. The gear is press-fitted into place with thick, heavy foam rubber.

2012-08-03

Greener pastures

The lush green grass has kept me fairly well off the computer during summer time. Early in the season I had a pro take a look at my swing and assign a training program. The results have been encouraging, gaining a club length in distance and significantly reduced the random hook/slice errors per round. Getting longer shots has cause a bit of trouble estimating the right club choic, and fairly frequently I've found myself in situations I couldn't even comprehend earlier.

Today was a significant exception to the better play regime. It served as a reminder on how well compared to past games I've played this season and the last. But the culprit was easy to identify. Approaching winter and dark skies have stirred a bit of life at the observatory and I'd spent yesterday doing physical labour with a chisel and wooden mallet in hand. The pounding hand was a bit shaken today, and just getting a natural feeling grip was a challenge let along getting a clean, effortless swing in rhythm. Funny how those little things can affect your game.

Currently the big question is, do I want to upgrade any part of my astrophoto setup for the coming season? The options are fairly limited with a budget available. I could get hyperstar for my own C8, but that would mean getting a 2" filter set and upgrading the rear cell focusing system to an automated one. That's stretching the budget a "bit" beyond the funds. I could hog most of the imaging time from the club William Optics, it gives a good, flat field with a near perfect angular resolution in the Finnish seeing (about 1.75"/px on my camera). The TS-Quad isn't quite as nice for my camera and it would match a C8+Hyperstar in focal length at 420mm (vs 425mm with Hyperstar). And it's a lot slower at f/6.5 vs f/2.1 for the C8 Hyperstar, a difference of over three stops. Hard decisions, and only three weeks to first moment of astronomical darkness for the next season.