Damsel

Went to Mt Coot-tha Botanical Gardens this morning to shoot some macro with Hayden and Andrew. Here's a damselfly (about 50mm long) that was patient enough to let me get close.

Merry Christmas 2012

Falcon

Hayden not quite there will his catching skills yet :)

More of Hayden's photos

Just thought I'd post some more of the photos Hayden took on Sunday at RSP. I'm finding it amazing seeing the world through the eyes of a 2.5yr old.

Hayden and Daddy's photography session at Roma St Parklands

Hayden and I took a trip to Roma St Parklands on the train on Sunday.  He loves trains, was a good excuse to get out of the house, and have a bit of a scout around RSP to see if there were many insects around for some macro photography opportunities.

This was an unusual fly I found.  It's a treehopper mimic fly, a very pregnant one by the looks of it.



And I quite liked the purple velvet texture of the stalk this robberfly was perched on.  Was hoping to get a better shot, but there was a brown flash in the field of view, and when I looked up from behind my camera there was a female blue wren licking her lips right next to where he was.  Can only assume the predator (robberflies are insectivores) became lunch.



To keep Hayden entertained, I gave him our compact digital camera and taught him how to click the shutter.



I figured he could take thousands of photos, it costs nothing.  He absolutely loved it.  And these are some of the shots he took.  Some not too bad.  I honestly had nothing to do with these, he did everything himself.  All I did was download them and do some very basic white balance/contrast adjustments.  No cropping or anything.  Not bad for a 2.5 year old?

Queensland Astrofest 2012

Went to my third Queensland Astrofest last week for 3 nights. You might recall last year's posts of the star trails and M20 Trifid Nebula.

Unlike last year, I didn't have equipment issues per se. I was, however, sick as a dog trying to shake a bit of a cold/flu. Just wouldn't go away, and sitting out in a field in winter is not really the cure that I'd hoped for.

The first night was clear and great conditions until fog rolled in around 2am-3am. Being too keen to get going, I didn't quite spend enough time drift aligning, and my longer exposures and guiding wasn't quite where it should have been. That's my fault.

Second night I spent more time drift aligning and the guiding was spot on, probably the best I've achieved. This was also the night I got some of my best images. Unfortunately cloud rolled in to slow things down and I didn't get to complete some of the later images.

Third night I was really unwell. Borrowed some drugs, washed them down with some beers, and felt much better. Then the clouds rolled in, followed by a lightning storm. It was also the Friday night, and lots of kids had turned up. Running in and around everyone's equipment, I had 2 kids tripping over my USB cables nearly pulling them out. Another guy tripped over my power connection and it did disconnect my power, but fortunately I was using a UPS so when it started beeping I realised what happened and was able to plug in the power again while on the backup supply. It was a real circus and not much achieved.

On top of the above, on the second and third nights my telescope was catching some stray light reflections. This gives a rainbow flare in the edges of my shots. Couldn't figure out what was causing it on the second night, but realised it was torch flare from a nearby astro-imager who was tinkering with his gear all night. He continued to do it on Friday night and the same effect was in my images.

So in the end, only got a couple of images completed, some ruined by light reflections, and some half-finished ones that will need more data to add. Here's the pick of the bunch.

NGC6726 region in the constellation Corona Australis. I love the blue reflection nebulae, dusty background, and globular cluster. I had to crop it down due to the rainbow flare bottom left. Still, I think it turned out pretty well.

This is M33 the Triangulum Galaxy in the constellation Triangulum. Only managed to get luminance data on it. Will have to add some colour when I get a chance, which may not be until next year due to it being so low in the sky here in south-east Queensland.

And this is Cr399 the Coathanger or Brocchi's Cluster in the constellation Vulpecula. The asterism of bright stars pretty clearly shows a coathanger shape. It's a very cool visual object through binoculars, too. Lots of golden stars in the background too, because it's right in the plane of the Milky Way.

M20 Trifid Nebula and friends in Sagittarius

Kind of wider view of the well known pair of M20 Trifid Nebula and M21 the open cluster just below and right of it in the constellation Sagittarius. This was taken at home with virtually a full moon. Surprised how much red Ha was around the area. I don't recall seeing a shot of the area with this much Ha.

Here's the area just with the Ha filter. Shows up the nebulosity with better contrast.

M16 Eagle Nebula in Serpens

This is the famous Eagle Nebula in the constellation Serpens, shot with monochrome Ha filter due to full moon being nearby. Some of the most famous Hubble Space Telescope images are of the "Pillars of Creation", which are in the core of the nebula.

The smaller bit of nebulosity top right is RCW162, another Ha region.

Sketchup: my first 3D model

I have known of Google's [1] free SketchUp (SU) for some time, but have never really used it before. Recently I was helping a friend with the structural engineering on his observatory, and around the same time I was reminded about SU by an architect using it on another project we were working on. I decided to learn and model the observatory structure using SU.

While I kind of bit off more than I can chew, it has been a fun experience learning SU. I have since bought the pro version of SU, which has more capabilities in terms of layers and import/export to AutoCAD etc. Don't be discouraged from the free version, though. It's very powerful in its own right.

One benefit of the pro version is the package LayOut, which allows you to present your model on drawing sheets. Kind of like PaperSpace in AutoCAD, while SU is like ModelSpace. Kind of.

I will be using SU at work for schematics and conceptual design more and more.

Anyway, here's some screenshots of my first 3D modelling experience. The drawings are not complete in terms of drafting details. Some messy connections/details that I need to go back and tidy up a bit.

The style is not the traditional structural engineering style of presentation either. Thought I'd have a bit of fun with it since it wasn't a professional type project.

[1] More correctly, Google created and started out SketchUp, but it now has a home at Trimble.

IC4628 Prawn Nebula in Scorpius

This is the Prawn Nebula in Scorpius. It was nearly full Moon, so I used a Ha filter and only showing it in monochrome. Too many gradients in the colour version.

Family Gathering

Kyle, Sam, and Ella came up for the weekend, so we met them down at Currumbin beach for breakfast, spent the morning at the beach, and the rest of the day at Mum and Dad's place. Was a very enjoyable morning. Hayden and Ella got along famously.

PixInsight Tutorial: BatchPreprocessing template script howto

I know of quite a few people who have bought the astrophotography image processing software PixInsight (PI), but only use it for one or two specific features, such as the gradient removal tools, or merging mosaics. The common reasons/excuses given for not using it for their full processing workflow seem to be "there isn't sufficient documentation", "I tried it, but calibrating and stacking images was so tedious, I just want to click a few buttons and have my images stacked", and "I don't want to have to learn a whole new platform."

So I thought I'd write a little tutorial that will hopefully help ease those concerns. I decided a good subject to achieve that would be a howto on using and writing a BatchPreprocessing (BPP) template script, with lots of screenshots to make it easier for those who don't like books without pictures.

The Wishing Well

This is NGC3532, the Wishing Well Cluster, in the constellation Carina.  I like the faint red stream of nebulosity going through the cluster.

Red Rooster

We've had some pretty clear nights with good seeing lately, so I've been up all hours gathering as many photons as I can. This is IC2944, the Running Chicken Nebula, in the constellation of Centaurus. The name comes from the small dark part at the top right looks like a chicken running upside down around that curved brighter nebulosity. Don't worry if you can't see it. Took me 18 months to see it.

Making pikelets

Just some photos of Hayden helping Mummy make some pikelets this afternoon.

How exciting:

Enjoying the spoils:

Ok, so that one didn't turn out that well:

Gabriela Mistral Nebula

NGC3324, commonly referred to as the Gabriela Mistral Nebula, is the roundish nebula bottom centre here. It's located in the constellation Carina, and the nebulosity you can see on the left hand side is the corner of the massive Eta Carinae Nebula that you may have seen before.

Cat's Paw Nebula

I just love this nebula. Looks so much like its namesake.

PixInsight: helpful links

This post is just a list of useful PixInsight links to help me if I get stuck processing my astro-images. It will be updated as more useful links are found.

PixInsight official:

• Image Integration Documentation
• Color Calibration thread
• Vicent Peris' "New Approach to the Combination of Broadband and Narrowband Data"
• Color Management Settings
• Which tools are best with linear and non-linear data
• Video tutorials
• Processing examples
• Tutorials
• The PixInsight YouTube Channel

Harry's AstroShed:

• Harry's PixInsight User Guide
• Harry's PixInsight Video Tutorials

Other links:

• Drake Visual's links

M41 Little Beehive cluster

This is M41, the Little Beehive open cluster, in the constellation of Canis Major. It is very close in the sky to Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky.

Taken at him in light-polluted inner-city Brisbane. Quite pleased with how well it turned out.

Mars

Took this shot of Mars the other night. My first of this planet. Not the best, the seeing wasn't very good at all. Still, happy I can make out some of the dark patches on the surface.

Orion Nebula

This is the often-imaged and very bright Orion Nebula M42 in the constellation of... Orion.

Rosette Nebula

This is the Rosette Nebula NGC2237 in the constellation Monoceros. Only managed to collect Ha data before clouds rolled in, so no colour at this stage.

Ten Chain Hill Observatory 21/1/12

Went up to Ten Chain Hill Observatory, part way between Somerset and Wivenhoe Dams, to (fingers crossed) do some astro-imaging. Unfortunately the clouds had other ideas. But fortunately, I did get to play with some timelapse photography that I've been wanting to try for years. Here is a short 15 second video of me setting up my equipment.

Currumbin Rocks

Had to do a site inspection at Coolangatta Airport this morning at 7am, so decided to go a bit earlier and shoot sunrise at Currumbin Rocks.

Got down there in the dark, before dawn. Hadn't scouted the area and only noticed this cool little depression after I had packed up and on the way back to the car. Wish I had spent more time there. Next time...