This is Venus, the 15th March 2009

Venus is now very close to the Sun, respect to our Earth position. That means it is getting bigger but harder to observe.

Humboldt crater

Humboldt crater as seen with the Vixen 12×80 binoculars. This is a big crater but very near to the Moon limb. One day after full moon, Humboldt delivers high contrast images due to its shadow. The day this shot was made, the Moon libration wasn’t the better one to view Humboldt in its extension, but edge-on. The inner central peaks are visible.

Praesepe Open Cluster

Praesepe, also known as M44 or the Beehive cluster is one of the brightest open clusters in northern sky. Visible with unaided eye, even in urban areas. I have applied some filters to enhance the picture, including an artificial diffraction mask to get spikes. Using the shift-and-add technique for 1 minute I got this result.

Gauss crater

Gauss is the big crater near Mare Crisium. It is visible one day after Full Moon, because this is the exact moment for its best shadow projection. Berosus and Hahn are the two smaller craters near Gauss. It is visible a tiny central peak inside Hahn crater. And inside Gauss we can barely spot a shadow that Gauss B casts. Gauss B is a small crater to be guessed in Gauss.

Almost Full Moon

Here we see a 13 days lunation Moon, almost full. Registax 5 did the work of stacking and wavelets. Focus was not perfect but wavelets fixed it. I multiplied the red channel to the green channel in order to enhance the image contrast.

M42 through binoculars

M42 is the brightest nebula in the sky. It becomes visible even under light polluted urban skies. I took some exposures of M42, the Great Nebula of Orion, using my Vixen 12×80 binoculars and stacked them up. No tracking, even manual. Just shift-and-add method. This is the result; up to magnitude 12 stars are visible and the core of the nebula is also evident:

Aristillus close-up

Aristillus, Cassini, Mons Piton, Montes Alpes and Vallis Alpes are visible in this close-up shot through the Vixen 12×80 binoculars. The area may be compared to that exposed in Rükl plate #12.

Archimedes and Plato are the biggest craters shown in this area, called Mare Imbrium. The biggest mountains below are Montes Caucasus. Some of its peaks (heights of 6 km) project big shadows.

Digital camera & Binoculars

Here is my way to attach the pocket digital camera Casio Exilim EX-Z80 to my binoculars Vixen 12×80. It is necessary to cut a piece of aluminum respecting the format of the binoculars, calculating the correct distance between the hole that grabs the camera and the hole to fix with the tripod and the binoculars. Remember to always use British Standard Whitworth (BSW) screw threads, 1/4 inch, and to drill the holes for this width.

This way it is easy to do afocal astrophotography, and get sharp focus, because the camera remains pointed correctly through one eyepiece of the binoculars.

28 minutes of exposure for Lulin

Very dim Lulin needs long exposures to get captured. With no tracking, using the shift-and-add method and the pocket camera Casio Exilim EX-Z80 under light polluted skies I got this picture:

Lulin Comet

It has not been easy to get a shot of Lulin Comet from the light polluted city I live in. Lulin is not a bright comet. I couldn’t observe it with naked eye. It was only visible through the Vixen 12×80 binoculars. Here we see Lulin near Spica, alfa Virgo. The Moon appears to make harder to get a good contrast.

Equipment: Vixen 12×80

Vixen 12×80 are an astronomical binoculars. They are very useful to watch wide star fields and deep sky objects in dark nights.

Vixen 12x80

Attaching Exilim to Telescope

Digital pocket cameras like Casio Exilim EX-Z80 are not prepared to be attached to the focuser of a telescope. But it is simple to make a hand-crafted device with a piece of wood and a British Standard Whitworth (BSW) screw 1/4″ thread. The attachment is not rock solid, but enough to take photos and videos through the telescope using the afocal technique. Here we see the Casio attached to the Tanzutsu 114/1000 telescope.

The Moon highly saturated

Usually we see the Moon as in a gray scale picture, with no color details. Nevertheless the Moon has different hues depending on the chemical composition of the terrain. For example, Mare Tranquillitatis has a blue tone due to its titanium high density. Processing a Moon picture computationally, we may exaggerate its colors, giving high saturation to RGB colors. In the resulting image, Mare Tranquillitatis is the most blueish dark area. Equipment: Telescope Tanzutsu Catadioptric 114/1000.

Moon & Exilim

Casio Exilim EX-Z80 is a pocket digital camera, very useful to make photos during holidays or a trip. But it may also be used to do some kind of astrophotography. Its maximum zoom is 3x magnification. Here we see a comparison of a Moon shot with 1x and 3x zoom. With 1x zoom some big maria are visible, like Tranquillitatis, and at 3x even mare Crisium is captured.

Background substraction

Astrophotos taken in light polluted skies use to show a noisy gray background that should be avoided mainly for aesthetic reasons, and also to gain contrast in deep-sky objects. Using some image software like Paintshop Pro or Photoshop it is simple to correct the image in 4 steps:

1.- Make a copy of the image.

2.- Level the copy from zero to the highest background noise value. This way bright stars will appear as dim as background.

3.- Gaussian Blur the copy.

4.- Substract the copy to the original picture. You may add a small offset to the substraction if the background removal is very hard.

Here is an example with Orion constellation:

Hyakutake under several filters

The Great Comet of 1996, Hyakutake, was bright in the night sky. Here we see one shot with Praktica Reflex camera and low magnification lens, under heavy image process. Several filters were applied.

C/1996 B2 on Praktica Reflex

A long exposure under dark skies got Comet Hyakutake. I was need to apply some enhancement image processing techniques to increase contrast.

Hyakutake C/1996 B2

Hyakutake comet, also know as C/1996 B2, is passing near the Earth at March 1996. This photo was taken with Praktica Reflex camera and Tamron 300mm telephoto lens.

Orion belt

Orion is the most important Winter constellation in Northern Hemisphere. In its center we find the “Orion belt” and beneath, the “Orion sword”. The nebulas located in the area show red colors: horsehead, flame and M42 are visible in this shot.

Comet Szczepanski C/1996 B1

Comet Szczepanski C/1996 B1 captured with a 50 mm Reflex analog camera under dark skies, Manaluna Observatory. Comet Szczepanski was very dim, around 8th magnitude, near Regulus, alfa Leo Major.