19:00 – 21:30
This evening I went along to the BAS solar viewing session. We had great fun. I took along my S50 and set about taking an image of the solar surface.
We were setup by the school at Cliddesden.
A small Lunt was also providing some lovely views.
I got a quick look at the Moon
Then I helped one of our members, Chris, setup his solar scope and get it into focus using an extended imaging train.
Success
This is real astronomy 😉
21:53 – 23:56
I had been seeing a small problem with the Seestar S30. I noticed on holiday that the top left corner looked out of focus. I contacted the brilliant ZWO support and they suggested it might be a focus issue in that it was not focused properly. Tonight I thought I would refocus and take some more images to see. This is what I saw.
As you can see the image is almost perfect. Much better than the affending stars from the trip up Tenerife’s mountain Teide recently. Problem solved. It had clearly not auto focused correctly. If I see the same problem again I will simply re auto focus. Here is another of Mizar and Alcor in the handle of Ursa Major.
Onto the other test for the night was the Canon 6D that I have and testing it again with the Samyang 14mm f/2.8 lens for use in Namibia. I set about shooting so images on the twilight sky and the stars were pin sharp.
I also liked this one with a longer exposure and thus the clouds captured in motion.
22:50 – 03:05
I setup with the 150 Esprit in the dome and both the Seestar S30 Pro and the S50.
I set about using the S30 Pro to capture M16 and M17 in a single frame. This was really my first time using the smart scope in earnest.
Meanwhile I setup the 150 Esprit to capture M13.
I stayed with this until the light started to increase and then went to bed. The final unprocessed image straight from the S30 Pro is below.
Once I had processed using PixInsight from the S30 Pro it looked so much better.
On the S50 I took some data on IC 1284.
22:42 – 23:32
I’m out with the 22″ Obsession again doing visual. The images below are from the Moon Globe HD app on my iPhone, not focal this time. I have included as an aid to what I saw visually.
Time – 22:42 / Object – Moon / Eyepiece – 31mm Nagler
Time – 23:15 / Object – Moon / Eyepiece – 13mm Ethos
• ⁃ Beer & Feuillee stand out so much more. Also Montes Archimedes is very prominent and the 3 main ranges. We are in the middle of a heatwave with a very unusual heat dome sitting over my part of England. This is causing the air to be very still and thus the seeing is astonishing. The Moon is still not wobbling at all.
