Light Pollution Filters

This Link appears to be, the only place where the Ice Lipo filter is tested & discussed.
I use it myself.

Some notes from back in 2011:

First visual observing session - 3/10/11 Using Barska 15x70 binocs on low-cost tripod.
Observed Globular star clusters M13 and M92. The Hercules Cluster was pretty easy (of course). M92 was very faint, however.

More Great Binocular-Related Links!

This fellow has created some amazing sketches:

Collection of awesome sketches, made with Binocs

PDF document discussing binocular mounts

And, if you feel like reading some intricate details, about each Deep-Sky Object:

http://www.starman.co.uk/book/hba-home.htm

http://www.lightandmatter.com/binosky/binosky.html

Great Binocular Links!

http://www.saguaroastro.org/content/Great-Objects-for-Rich-Field-Telescopes.htm

http://www.stargazing.net/david/binoculars/index.html

A couple more very brief Book Reviews

---

I've recently read, and found the following two books to be excellent!
And, can recommend them:

Binocular Astronomy (Patrick Moore’s Practical Astronomy Series)
Author: Stephen Tonkin
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1846283086 - Excellent! A+++

Viewing the Constellations with Binoculars
250+ Wonderful Sky Objects to See and Explore
Series: Patrick Moore's Practical Astronomy Series
Author: Kambic, Bojan
2010, X, 510 p. 204 illus., Softcover
ISBN: 978-0-387-85354-3 - Great book, only half-way through it, but really like it so far! Great tips & reference info.

Clear skies!
-Al

Old film photo - Corona Borealis

Recently found an old film AP pic I took. I'm afraid I don't have a lot of info on this one.
I can tell you it was taken years ago, using Kodak ISO 200 Slide Film, and scanned with an Epson scanner. It may have been taken with a Pentacon Six, Medium Format camera, but again, I'm not sure. I had to significantly reduce it, just to upload it. Orig. size was over 96MB!
Just a random shot of the area near the constellation Corona Borealis (seen on the left-hand-side of the pic).

A Brief Post On Being disabled.

I suppose I should touch on the subject of how it's been, living with my disabilities. It's been about 2 and a half years now. I basically use this Blog for posting pictures to show my Family/Friends.
But, for those of you who didn't know: My two main problems are: 7 damaged discs in my spine and Fibromyalgia. In my case, back surgery is not an option. I must be on quite a few different meds, for the rest of my life. There are just a ton of things that I just can't do anymore.
In fact, the list of things I can do, is very short. *sigh*
So, I don't want to dwell on it too much, here on the Blog. The reason I mention it, though; is that I found that even some simple Astrophotography was too much for me to do. So, as far as Astronomy goes: I've gone back to just trying to do some visual observing. And, found that even this can be very painful. Again, I'm very limited in what I can do.
In any case, eventually, there will not be many astrophotos being posted on here : (
...But, I will be posting updates (Simple logs) of my visual observing sessions. And any accomplishments that I may achieve.

First visual observing session - 3/10/11 Using Barska 15x70 binocs on low-cost tripod.
Observed Globular star clusters M13 and M92. The Hercules Cluster was pretty easy (of course). M92 was very faint, however.

Tried Film Astrophotography again...

I tried tripod-mounted film Astrophotography again...Yes, a bit of Déjà vu here. I basically only ended up exposing ~1 roll of film per camera. And, for some cameras; I didn't even get to shoot any film - That's how fast I changed my mind, and started listing them on e-bay. I hope to post some of the results soon...
I believe I've only got about a handful of "viable" prints to show for it -For the whole ordeal, and all the inconvenience, etc.

Well, this was my 2nd (low-budget) film camera collection, when it was at about it's "peak"
Just before everything was sold (on e-bay):

I did have a Petri 1.9 in pristine condition (not pictured) - And, I didn't get a chance to even shoot one roll of film through it.


Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
-Albert Einstein

*sigh*

Some "Quick & Dirty" Book reviews

It's been quite a few years since I sold all my Astronomy books. There were some good ones in my collection. I've always especially loved books by Philip Harrington
(http://www.philharrington.net/). In fact, I still have (and read) the 1st Edition of his Star Ware.

Well, I've been reading a lot lately... Since I've become very interested in Visual Astronomy again, I've bought several books. And, I thought I'd list them here, and give my quick impressions of each.

Visual Astronomy in the Suburbs: A Guide to Spectacular Viewing (Patrick Moore's Practical Astronomy Series)[Paperback]: Excellent, highly recommended. I love this one. I also like the fact that the subject of Image Intensifiers. The subject is new to me, and really interesting. Even though I have owned and used a Meade CCD camera before.

Binocular Astronomy (Patrick Moore's Practical Astronomy Series) [Paperback]Stephen Tonkin (Author):
Awesome, just as good (maybe better) than the book above! Just great - A wealth of information.

Real Astronomy with Small Telescopes: Step-by-Step Activities for Discovery (Patrick Moore's Practical Astronomy Series) [Paperback] Michael Gainer (Author):
Not a bad book, but not fantastic either. Honestly, I was a bit disappointed with this one.
While reading this book, I get the feeling of actually being discouraged from attempting any visual observing. The Author seems to dwell on the negative side of observing from light-polluted areas.

The Urban Astronomer's Guide: A Walking Tour of the Cosmos for City Sky Watchers (Patrick Moore's Practical Astronomy Series) [Paperback]Rod Mollise(Author):

I loved this book! I actually haven't finished reading it all yet. But, I can highly recommend it. It is the exact opposite of the book reviewed above ^ This book is simply excellent! I give it an A+

Well, that's it for now. More book reviews will follow, at some point in the future...

Rod Mollise (Author)

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One of several old Barn Door Trackers...

Here are some old pics I came across, of one of the Barn Door Trackers I had.
I tried to get it to work...but literally blew out transistors on the circuit board because the camera was too heavy. I went through two Stepper Motor controller boards, before I gave up and sold it.

The Andromeda Galaxy

Taken with a Canon 50mm lens, attached to Meade DSI CCD camera.

~200 exposures of 2.8 seconds each, stacked using Nebulosity software.

Messier Object M16

The "eagle" is not visible, since this is a very wide field shot. It is a very small dark area of nebulosity deep inside the nebula - and a camera lens isn't going to show it, It would need more magnification (i.e. a telescope).

Messier Object M23

A multiple-update post -

Going to try to fit in a lot of developments, in one post - In a nut shell:
After many attempts at Astrophotography with 35mm film, I moved to Medium format.
After many attempts with Medium format cameras, lenses and Kodak E200 slide film: I still didn't produce any images that I'd say are even worthy of posting here. They just weren't anything special.
So, we're going to skip all the pics of medium format cameras, lenses and the images they produced, since none of them were anything "to write home about".
Sold all my medium format cameras, lenses, film and mailers.
>>>>Fast forward>>>>Decided what the heck - And took the plunge into CCD imaging.
Got a used Meade DSI-C (one shot color) CCD camera used, off e-bay for a little under $200.
Bought an SLR lens to CCD adapter from Mogg adapters in the land down under for ~$70 (shipped) and started up the steep learning curve...
To make a long story short - I've been having a lot of fun! Been using both 50mm and 135mm fast Canon lenses (from my Canon AE-1). I've been getting some nice results - especially considering that none of my exposures have even gone much more than 5 minutes total.
I'm still just a beginner in the world of CCD Astrophotography, and have a long way to go.
But after only a few weeks -I finally have a really nice image (for a beginner) that I can post here. It was taken from my light-polluted backyard, in Bronx NY.
It is of Messier object, M17, the Swan Nebula:





This was taken with the Meade DSI, a Canon 135mm F/2.5 lens, set at F/4, A stack of 87 2.8 second exposures, stacked using Nebulosity's Drizzle feature. (Drizzle was developed by NASA to be used for the Hubble Space Telescope's images). The image has been saved in JPG format and compressed from it's original un-compressed format for easier uploading, viewing, etc.

Random Star Field near Cygnus

Taken with the awesome Yashica Electro GSN 35. Slide film on EQ-1 tracking mount.

Exposure ~1.5 minutes.

Enhanced with Adobe Photoshop CS. Converted to JPG to decrease image size.

My current (low budget) equipment

The Canon AE-1, in the lower right hand corner, is my most expensive (and most used) camera.

Best shots yet - Shot in Long Island NY

The shot above features the Orion constellation, on the right side of the pic.

Below: The Pleaides and Hyades star clusters.

It sure is nice to be able to take pics under less light polluted skies...These were shot on Long Island.

These are fixed tripod shots, taken with the Minolta SRT-201. I believe I probably used the 45mm "pancake" lens for this shot (stopped down a stop or two) - it was way too cold to take proper notes.

Gemini

The Gemini Constellation, shot outside my back window, in Bronx, NY.

(under lots of light pollution). Used 35mm camera, slide film on Orion EQ-1 motorized mount.

Exposure ~30 seconds.

M44 - The Beehive Cluster

Shot out of my back window, in Bronx NY. Camera: Minolta SRT-201, 135mm lens, Kodak E200 color slide film, exposed for ~30 seconds. Mounted on Orion EQ-1 motorized mount.

The single slide was scanned on an Epson 4490 scanner. Minimal image enhancement & HotPixel removal.

The Pleaides taken with Kodak E200 Slide film

Taken with Minolta SRT-201, Kodak E200 Slide film, slide scanned on Epson 4490 photo scanner. Only very minor software enhancement.

Cassiopeia region

Sigma SA-300, 28mm zoom lens, ~90 degrees, 30" exposure on Hypered Fuji 800 film.

Minor enhancement with Paint.net. Andromeda galaxy visible as a faint smudge indicated by black arrow.

Orion's belt & sword region - Hypered film

Sigma SA-300, zoom lens set to 70mm, ~30" exposure, on Lumicon hypered - Fuji 800 print film. About 45 degrees above horizon. Enhanced using Paint.net & HotPixels software.

Film photo - 4x6 Print that was scanned

Sigma SA-300, ~30" exposure, fixed tripod, 28-70mm Sigma zoom lens set at 50mm ( I believe). Taken from Long Island NY. Cropped & slightly enhanced using Paint.net.

Film photos - 4x6 Prints that were scanned

Taken with a Sigma SA-300, 28-70mm zoom lens, fixed tripod with objects almost directly over head (~90 deg. ). Exposure was 30 seconds. Scanned on a standard flatbed scanner, and very little enhancement, using Paint.net

Captured the Pleiades and Hyades in the same pic. I may have had the lens set at 28mm? Don't recall...

Comet Holmes -

Taken on Nov 3rd, from Long Island; with 3.1MP Canon S1 IS. Camera settings were not recorded. Not a great photo, by any stretch. But, it's one of the few decent shots I got of comet Holmes. ISO 400, 10 Sec. exposure at F3.2, 10x zoom.

Another shot of comet Holmes - too bad the airliner had to fly through it - it would have been a nice one.

The moon, taken on 10/27/07 with Samsung S630

Camera used was a Samsung S630, on a fixed tripod, 1 sec. exposure, 3x optical zoom, ISO of 400: