Orion Nebula and Pleiades Images

Managed to get out last night at about 9.30pm until Midnight. With so many great sights in the sky at the moment in January it’s hard to know what to try and image first. M1 Crab Nebula, M45 Pleiades, Mars, M42 Orion Nebula, Horsehead Nebula etc. At the moment I love connecting my Canon 450D

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Lunar Eclipse Image on Sky News

I sent my lunar eclipse images around the internet and managed to get the photo on the Sky News website within about 12 hours. The local CAA have also responded, and so have the SPA. The SPA have requested a high resolution version, hopefully for the quarterly magazine, but we’ll see.

Partial Lunar Eclipse New Year’s Eve 2009

Managed to get out tonight for a while around 7.30pm, I did not think the clouds would clear. Usually whenever there is something worth looking at it’s always cloudy! But eventually the clouds went and the moon was in full view, even though it was -1 degrees in the shed. I took these images by

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The Universe DVD

One of the best series on astronomy and the solar system for me has been The Universe from the History Channel. It is now available as a standard DVD and in Blu-Ray High Definition format. There are currently 2 series you can buy, the first series is on 3 DVDs and so you get 600 mins

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Apollo 11 Manual by Haynes

The Apollo 11 Manual by Haynes really caught my idea when reading the December 2009 edition of The Sky at Night magazine. What a great and very unique gift for an astronomer, the acutal intricate manual to the Apollo 11 spacecraft in a Haynes style book. This manual looks at the evolution and design of

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Vega Constellation

Tonight was my first night out for a while, I think the weather has been pretty terrible lately, or when it has been a clear night I have been doing something else, like my photography evening class. Anyway tonight I went out and decided to try out my homemade camera mount, which is on top of

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The Brightest Stars Book Review

 The Brightest Stars book is all about twenty-one of the brightest stars visible from Earth. The Brightest Stars instructs you how to find the stars and the best way to see them. Each section about each star contains information about the history of the star and legends that are connected with each star. There are

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Apollo Saturn V Model

Get up to speed with the Apollo Saturn V, the American rocket that blasted the three lunar explorers to the Moon. This stunning Revell 1:96 scale replica is a life-like model that includes launch platform and supports, plus four paints, double ended brush and precision applicator glue for detailed decoration. What a great model for

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How To Make a Wooden Camera Mount

Since getting my guiding telescope on top of my Meade LX200, I have run out of space to put other items around the telescope. When you first get an LX200 telescope, you think there are lots of screws to use to add extras, but they soon get all used. I currently have the Meade finder

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How To Make a Diffraction Spike Mask

I have seen these pleasing images where the stars have spikes coming out of them, most notably on the pleiades (seven sisters) images. I want to be able to get these in my images as well, and now I have found out how to get them by using a diffraction mask on my LX200. Today

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