Jupiter – First try for a good image

Currently Jupiter is easily visible in the sky after about 10pm in the South Eastern sky.  It will be the brightest thing you can see (unless the moon is up).  If you look at it through binoculars you may see up to 4 moons, Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto.  There are many more moons however only these largest 4 can be easily seen.

Last night 2nd September 2010 I decided to try to get some images of Jupiter, using my 10″ telescope and webcam.  This was done in the same way as the other images on this blog, by recording a movie, with the webcam, of Jupiter and then using software to separate the movie into individual images and them aligning and stacking the images.  For those who want more detail see below the picture.  Here is the first try at processing one of the movies into an image.  It isn’t too bad but with more time I think I can get more detail out of it.  So hopefully I will post up some more images soon.

The webcam was a Philips SPC900NC with an Astronomik IR cut filter and x2 barlow.  just over 1000 frames recorded in 100 seconds.  Telescope was Orion Optics Europa 10″ on CG5 motor driven mount.  Image was processed in Registax.  Taken on 2nd September 2010 at 2334 BST.

Saturn – First try for images

Saturn has to be the most captivating of planets, to be able to see this with the amazing ring structure from the back garden is truly astonishing.  So in April 2010 I tried not just to view Saturn but to take some pictures of it.  It was also the first time I had used the telescope in the Observatory.

This picture was taken with the 6″ reflector and as with the images of the Moon was done using a webcam and stacking software.

When this picture was taken Saturn was roughly 1,301,501,475 Kilometers or 808,715,523 Miles away from Earth.

My original photo was not as good as the one above, however someone on stargazerslounge.com tweaked it a little for me and darkened the background.  I am pleased with my first try at Saturn and am looking forward to trying it again.

The First Moon Shots

These were taken in 2008 with my C6N (6″ reflector), this is the first time I had tried taking any photographs through the telescope and was very pleased with the results.  I haven’t tried any more of the moon since this but now the observatory is all set up am looking forward to getting some more.

These were both taken using a Philips SPC900NC webcam (unmodified).  The resulting movie was then split into thousands of individual frames and then stacked using Registax.

A New Telescope

I was browsing Stargazerslounge.com when I saw for sale an Orion Optics Europa Telescope.  My current observatory telescope has a 6″ primary mirror, the one for sale had a 10″ primary mirror.  This was the perfect upgrade at a great price.  So a quick trip to Bath and I had myself a new more powerful telescope.  Here it is next to me to show the scale.

And here it installed in the observatory

What’s in a name?

You might think that Kikobero Observatory is a grand sounding name for a shed at the bottom of a garden in Bromsgrove.  Well you would be right it is, however let me explain why.  Firstly the observatory bit, inside the shed is a telescope, the roof of the shed rolls back and hey presto you can see the sky.

But what about the name Kikobero.  In August 2008 I went on a trip to Uganda and we visited and stayed the night in a remote village high up in the mountains bordering Kenya.  It was an amazing experience and I met some wonderful people, it would have made a great spot for an observatory and it left a lasting impression on me

So in honour of that place I named my observatory after it (and well, I couldn’t think of any other name).

The building of a small observatory

Over the last 12 months I have been building a home for my telescope.  It is not a very flash home, but it is a home non the less.  The following is a photographic account of the project.

The base is laid

The base was laid and pipes embedded in the concrete for electric cables.

The walls are up

The rails for the sliding roof are attached

A close up of the rails

The roof is built

Normally the roof of a shed like this is attached directly to the walls, but because of the need to slide the roof out of the way it had to be built on a separate frame with wheels attached to the underside.

The wheels ready for attaching to the underside of the roof

The doors and roof going on

The roof closed on its runners

The roof can slide out of the way for viewing the sky

Telescope installed

Ready for use, just need a clear night

It took a year of on and off acivity to get to this stage and whilst a very simple construction it is very effective as the telescope is now set up and aligned permanently and removes the need to carry everything  out each time.