Wesley's Tool-Box

After fixing the collimator screw problem, I spent some time getting my Celestron NexStar 6SE properly collimated. To see if this improved the sights, I pointed the telescope to Jupiter. Sure enough, I could see the details of the clouds on the surface much better. I could even make out the Great Red Spot.

I wanted to capture this on camera, so I attached my Canon EOS 450D DSLR directly to the telescope tube for some prime focus astrophotography. But for reasons I still haven't figured out yet, the photos couldn't resolve any details - the planet was just a yellowish disc. I'd have to take photos of the Moon to see what's going on in the coming days.

Still, I didn't want to waste a good sighting opportunity, so I pulled out my usual astrophotography gear, SX50 HS, and took the photos of Jupiter through the eyepiece and the barlow lens attached to the Celestron NexStar 6SE without using the optical zoom. This yielded a pretty good result, especially considering that I just held the camera up the eyepiece by hand. The disc is also about 2.75 times the diameter compared to what would've been possible with the camera's integrated 50x zoom (0.53 vs. 1.46 arc seconds).

Telescope: Celestron NexStar 6SE + 25mm eyepiece + 2.5x barlow
Device: Canon SX50 HS (afocal)
Settings: 24mm - ISO 80 - 1/80s - f/3.4
Filters: None
Time: 2015-03-27 01:14 KST
Location: Naju, Korea

As Saturn now rises before midnight, it becomes possible to see the planet well above the horizon before it disappears into the morning sky. Seeing that the weather was getting good, I decided to wake up early and see it for myself for the first time this year. I bought a new Celestron NexStar 6SE telescope some time ago and I could use it to pick it out of the southern sky with relative ease.

Unfortunately, one of the collimator screws on the telescope is stuck, preventing full calibration. I attached my DSLR to take some photos, but it did not come out well. So instead, I made a couple of quick shots using my iPhone 6 Plus through the eyepiece, which for some reason came out looking slightly better.

Not to waste the opportunity, I then took out my SX50 HS and photographed Saturn as I've done since two years ago. The result was the best the camera has produced so far, I think.

[Left]
Device: Canon SX50 HS
Settings: 1200mm (2x enlarged) - ISO 160 - 1/30s - f/6.5
Filters: None
Time: 2015-03-23 05:35 KST
Location: Naju, Korea
20 photos stacked with RegiStax 6.1.0.8

[Right]
Telescope: Celestron NexStar 6SE + 25mm eyepiece + 2.5x barlow
Device: iPhone 6 Plus (afocal)
Settings: 29mm - ISO 125 - 1/10s - f/2.2
Filters: None
Time: 2015-03-23 06:02 KST
Location: Naju, Korea

When Venus is visible in the evening sky, a crescent Moon can be found nearby roughly once a month in the west. The clouds and fogs cleared up yesterday evening, and I was able to see the two objects above the unfinished skyline of Naju Bitgaram City. A yellowish layer of smog is seen lingering on the horizon in the photo, but this was gone by the morning.

Device: iPhone 6 Plus
Settings: 29mm - ISO 500 - 1/4s - f/2.2
Filters: None
Time: 2015-03-22 19:29 KST
Location: Naju, Korea

May of this year is a good time to photograph Saturn. The opposition happens on 3AM, May 11, with the closest approach to Earth happening very close to that. This means that Saturn looks the biggest and brightest compared to other times of the year. The weather forecast says that the night of the opposition may be cloudy or rainy, so I took photos last night instead.

Device: Canon SX50 HS
Settings: 1200mm (2x Digital Teleconverter) - ISO 160 - 1/50s - f/6.5
Filters: None
Time: 2014-05-06 02:32 KST
Location: Suwon, Korea
31 photos stacked with RegiStax 6.1.0.8

I've recently bought a motorized equatorial mount called iOptron SkyTracker, which enables the camera to track the stars at the same speed as they move in the sky. This is useful for photographing faint objects through long exposures. But since the light pollution in the city sky hinders long exposure photography in the first place, I was unsure whether this would be of much use.

To see that the mount works as intended and is still useful under an uncooperative sky, I decided to try photographing two kinds things - asteroids and galaxies. For asteroids, the two brightest, Vesta and Ceres, were chosen. They were close to each other while moving in the constellation Virgo, between Arcturus and Mars, in the southern sky around midnight. Ceres is also a dwarf planet, so I would be photographing two types of celestial body at once.

For three nights (April 21-22, 23-24, and 24-25), I photographed the area just above Zeta Virginis (a.k.a. Heze) to catch the movement of two objects. The SkyTracker mount was used on the first and third night because the sky was clear, but the second night was riddled with fog in the lower sky, hindering the view of Polaris which is needed to calibrate the mount. So I had to take the photo using only the camera on high-ISO, (relatively) short exposure settings.

Two things became evident in this round of photographing. One, Vesta (magnitude 5.7) and Ceres (magnitude 7.0) could be clearly seen moving towards west each day. Two, the SkyTracker mount did an excellent job tracking the stars and the asteroids, producing images far better than using camera only. The second night's photo had small streaks, despite having only 10 seconds of exposure. Here are the full resolution photos used for the animation.


Device: Canon SX50 HS
Filters: None
Location: Suwon, Korea

#1: 121mm - ISO 80 - 300s - f/5.0 - 2014-04-22 00:05 KST
#2: 121mm - ISO 1600 - 10s - f/5.0 - 2014-04-24 00:07 KST
#3: 119mm - ISO 80 - 300s - f/5.0 - 2014-04-24 23:19 KST