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.
Sunday, 30 December 2012
Tuesday, 25 December 2012
Sunday, 9 December 2012
Wednesday, 28 November 2012
More of Hayden's photos
Monday, 26 November 2012
Hayden and Daddy's photography session at Roma St Parklands
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?
Wednesday, 22 August 2012
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.
Sunday, 5 August 2012
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.
Saturday, 4 August 2012
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.
Tuesday, 10 July 2012
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.
Tuesday, 3 July 2012
IC4628 Prawn Nebula in Scorpius
Wednesday, 27 June 2012
Family Gathering
Sunday, 10 June 2012
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.
Wednesday, 23 May 2012
The Wishing Well
Wednesday, 16 May 2012
Red Rooster
Sunday, 29 April 2012
Making pikelets
Friday, 27 April 2012
Gabriela Mistral Nebula
Tuesday, 24 April 2012
Monday, 9 April 2012
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:
Other links:
Saturday, 24 March 2012
M41 Little Beehive cluster
Wednesday, 14 March 2012
Wednesday, 8 February 2012
Friday, 27 January 2012
Rosette Nebula
Monday, 23 January 2012
Ten Chain Hill Observatory 21/1/12
Friday, 13 January 2012
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...