Astro-Cows

[MarkS]

Trying to teach French cows the finer details of astrophotography ...

[JohnP]

Is it a cow or a bull....? Either way I wouldn't go near it..... ! John

[Mike]

What is that mount Mark?

[RobertM]

Well if that's a bull then it probably won't be recognisable afterwards

[MarkS]

The mount is the CG5 that came with the C11.

The bull is friendly (I hope!) because I feed him pieces of stale baguette.  The true test will be when I'm out there in the dark photographing the Milky Way.  I'll defend myself with a stale baguette!

[Tony G]

Mark,

Be careful with the RED lights at night, as all the bull will see is total blackness with a glowing red target, (with you attached to the end of it)   

Tony G

[MarkS]

After a whole afternoon of instruction, this is what the bull produced:

4 x 5min Nikon D70 at 18mm F4.5 ISO 400



This will be improved once he learns to take flats ...

P.S. Someone forgot to turn the farmhouse lights out!  The red lights are from a telecom mast.  Jupiter is very bright. 

[Carole]

Wow Mark, that's fabulous, and I believe this was one of Mike's challenges for the month.

That looks like it is a Bull as it has long hairy bits where the udders would be on a cow.  Unless the hairy bits are the end of it's tail.

I am currently in Devon staying with my Uncle and Aunt and I took my telescope but not my imaging kit as I am only here for a long weekend and thought it would be impolite to be outside for a whole evening.  They have fabulous views of the ecliptic and are on a hill so got a great viewing of Jupiter which they saw for the first time in their lives.  Unfortunately though they are alongside a busy road lower than they are so bright street lights were right in our faces, so imaging would have probably not been all that good anyway.

Carole

 

[MarkS]

The astro-cow also had a go at Jupiter last night - 300 frames of 0.2 sec with an SPC900 webcam + barlow on the C11:

[Tony G]

Mark,

Great images, well done.

Another note on the Cow/Bull, don't drink the milk until you find out.

Tony G

[Rocket Pooch]

After a whole afternoon of instruction, this is what the bull produced:

Very Milky Way!

[Fay]

Very nice Mark. Looks like a bullock to me.

[MarkS]

Re-processed to subtract the background and thus bring out more detail.

4 x 5min Nikon D70 with 18mm lens at F3.5 ISO 400.

[MarkS]

I've also re-processed the Jupiter image from 23 August.  This time stacking the 80 sharpest frames instead of the 300 frames used previously.  Deconvolution was applied in both cases.

Previous image (using 300 frames):   


New image (using 80 frames):


Christopher Go's images of 18 & 27 August make interesting comparisons: http://www.christone.net/astro/jupiter/

[RobertM]

That looks really good Mark.  It certainly pays to be choosy - I had no idea how much difference that made.  Also that's a great widefield shot of the Milky way with Jupiter and nicely processed to subdue the light pollution.

Both are really excellent results.