Inside: Using DeepSky Stacker Make your own solar filter NWAS Review Worthing InOMN review APM 107 review JTW Eco 1100D review
And more inside 1 Comet ISON by Damian Peach
2
Hi everyone and welcome to the fourth issue of Astronomy 4 Everyone’s group newsletter. Well Christmas is upon us already, where did 2013 go? Apart of course for most of us here in the UK covered in cloud! I hope you all get some lovely astronomy related gifts this holiday season and hope also that all this new astronomy kit doesn’t plague as all with more cloud cover! I’d like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very merry Christmas and a happy and clear sky filled 2014. Keep looking up and keep enjoying and sharing this amazing hobby. Andy Lee
Contents 4
Intro to using DSS by John Slinn
8
Preview of my APM 107 by David Barnard
10
NWAS review by Andrew & Sue Davies
16
DIY Solar Filter by Steve Bassett
20
Members images
24
Two Comets to keep an eye on.
26
JTW Eco 1100D by David Barnard
29
Meteor showers in December and January
30
Worthing Astronomers InOMN event 2013 by Steve Bassett
32
Stacking Comet images in DSS by Andy Lee
To submit an article, review, story or anything thing else, including placing an advertisement in future issue’s please email Andy Lee astronomy4everyone@gmail.com for details. 3
An short introduction to using
Deep Sky Stacker (DSS) is my favourite software for calibrating my deep sky images before I process them using Photoshop, it really is easy to use once you set the parameters. First you must make sure you have loaded and are currently running the up to date version 3.3.3 or you’ll end up with a thin dark strip instead of the normal portrait image. This is available to download from the Yahoo group website as a beta version see:http://deepskystacker.free.fr/download/DeepSkyStacker333beta51.rar Be warned also that the official website still only has the 3.3.2 version to download which will not work with imagers using the later DSLRs from Canon, i.e. the 550D onwards. When you have downloaded and launched the software for the first time you are confronted with a page that looks like this –
See the circled ‘Options’ box, you need to set up your parameters here. When you click on ‘settings’ you’ll get a choice of two options, ‘Register’ or ‘Stacking’ 4
‘Register’ takes you to the ‘star detection threshold’ box which basically tells DSS how many stars to count in each of your sub exposures. If you get the ‘only one frame will be stacked’ error message you may need to reduce this setting... (You can get this error message too if your stars are excessively trailed.) – I usually have mine set to about 19. Clicking on the ‘Stacking’ tab will take you to a more involved box that allows you set your parameters for your light frames, dark frames, flats etc. The default settings are actually pretty good so unless you are working with a set of comet images (In which case you would set up your parameters under the ‘comet’ tab) or you have slightly trailed stars (In which case you would use the ‘Kappa Sigma’ setting among others in the ‘lights’ tab) as examples I would leave well alone, however, if you wish to look investigate and have a fiddle with the settings you can hover your curser over the icons and read the pop up descriptions of each function. For more info see this excellent link :http://www.covingtoninnovations.com/dslr/NewDSLR/index.html#DeepSkyStacker Ok so you have a set of light frames and some darks, flats etc and you want to start working on them in DSS. Start by opening the program and loading your light frames using the ‘open picture files’ tab at the top left of the home screen. When done your screen should look something like this (Ignore the version 3.3.2 title)
5
Continue by loading your ‘Dark’ - ‘Flat’ - ‘Bias’ frames if you are using them. (You certainly should be using ‘Dark’ frames) Start by clicking on the first light frame at the top of the list. At the top right you’ll see a slide bar – grab the slide and move it to the left to brighten your image up to see the stars. (This will not be saved to your finished image, it’s just a preview) Using your browser move it over your image – you’ll see how now it’s changed into a ‘zoom’ box J Inspect your image carefully by checking to see if your stars are nice and round with no tracking errors, if there are DELETE it – don’t be tempted to use it. Continue and check for airplane trails, satellites, clouds, haze etc. It’s tempting but DO NOT check the ‘check all’ box – this is lazy and you run the risk of ruining your finished image by not thoroughly checking your sub exposures. Once done, click on the ‘Register checked images’ tab and you’ll see a box appear with all your settings on it and here you’ll see why I like this program so much J If you have done something that DSS doesn’t like you’ll get a red warning message. If you do get this, just go back and check your settings. You’ll also see some suggestions by DSS – basically try to get everything green for go and nothing highlighted in red. You’ll also see how many images in your stack will be used after you have set how much of a percentage of your images you want to use – I usually set mine to 80% When you are happy just hit the ‘ok’ button and wait for DSS to align and calibrate your subexposues into a final saved ‘Autosave’ file. (This is saved in the same folder you opened your sub exposures from by default) How long depends on how fast your computer/laptop is – minutes or hours sometimes! You can do some basic processing in DSS but I always just close it and reopen the Autosaved image in Photoshop or similar as it’s a much more powerful and better tool at it than DSS. This is just a very basic introduction to this excellent software. I estimate about 90% of my DDA members use it because it’s such powerful tool for image calibration and so easy to use. There are several excellent Youtube tutorials where you can watch an experienced imager show you how to use all the functions to their full extent. Further reading :http://lightvortexastronomy.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/tutorial-registering-and-calibrating.html I hope you have enjoyed this brief article on DSS – In the next issue I’ll cover removing light pollution from your images. John Slinn Founder of Disciples of the Dark Arts 6
7
A quick review of my APM 107 By
David Barnard If, like me you are in the market for a new telescope, you are blessed to be living in a time where there is no greater choice in terms of type/price/quality for your new toy. The problem is that you now have so much choice that trying to whittle the choice down can make your brain start to hurt; well that’s how it felt for me when I made the decision to buy a new scope. So how do you choose with such a bewildering array of tubes and glass to choose from; well I guess it's dependant on what you want to use it for and for me I wanted an imaging scope. Since my main interest is deep sky and it needed to be portable I could eliminate the larger reflectors and catadioptrics so I was left with the trusty refractor but which one?? Well it needed to be apochromatic which invariably means a triplet and based on my budget I eventually reduced my shortlist down to 3 scopes: two Altair scopes (the 102F6.5 and the 115 f7) or the APM 107 at f6.5. I chose the APM for a number of personal reasons the main one was the opportunity to upgrade the focuser to a 3� starlight instruments feathertouch. So the day arrived and my shiny new toy arrived so what do you get for your money. Well the scope comes in a nice metal carry case with foam lining (but sadly no room for eyepieces or other ancillary stuff) plus a scope carry handle which isn’t fitted during transport but fits fine in the case once it is fitted and very handy for lugging the scope about. There are also some good quality scope rings attached fitted to a standard Vixen dovetail plate. However, I have changed the Vixen plate for a Losmandy plate as the Vixen felt a bit narrow and insubstantial for such a heavy(ish) scope. 8
The optics have been designed by APM with an Ohara FPL53 Super ED lens element in a triplet arrangement all mounted in a chunky (read heavy'ish) aluminium tube with a nicely flocked dew shield. The focuser is a real work of art and butter smooth to use and the whole scope has a quality feel to it (as it should at the price) and fully matched my expectations which to be honest was a bit of a relief as this was quite a big step for me. I have only imaged with this scope a few times but so far it is performing exactly as I had hoped (i.e faultlessly) and I can see me keeping this scope for a VERY long time. I even had the chance to use the scope visually for the first time at a recent star party and although I had to rack the focuser fully out to get my Baader Click-Stop zoom EP to focus I loved the high contrast and clear view it had to offer to the extent that I may start to use it a bit more visually. Cost of the scope at the time I purchased it was £1,750 with the standard focuser, but as I opted to upgrade that to the Feathertouch focuser it came in at a total of £2,150. A fair chunk of money to be sure, but you get a lot of scope for it! If your in the market for a 4” refractor and this is within budget then I think it deserves to make your shortlist.
The scope sits nicely on my Avalon Instruments M-Uno Mount along with a Baader Skysurfer V finder, SBIG guide camera and JTW ECO Ultimate 1100D camera.
M33 taken with my setup. 9
10
11
12
13
14
15
By Steve Bassett Important. Never view the Sun without a suitable Solar Filter! Solar observing is dangerous and can be hazardous to eyesight. I purchased a sheet of Baader astro solar film to try my hand at some white light solar observing and imaging and along with a friend have been playing around with different ways to mount it to my scope safely and effectively.
observational work and photographic use, it is also a lot cheaper than the ND3.8 so please make sure you purchase the correct film. As I wanted to do both visual and imaging I opted for the ND5.0. I decided to make this "how to" to show you, the reader how we went about making a simple filter attachment for the small 40mm aperture hole on the front of my 150P using some ply wood, glue and a few screws. To start I cut 3 75mm circles out of some 6mm ply wood.
As an alternative you could use thicker ply wood but this is all I had in the store. I then cut 46mm holes through the 3 75mm circles.
Please keep in mind there are 2 different filter densities available ND3.8 PhotoFilm and ND5.0 Safety Film. The ND3.8 PhotoFilm is not intended for visual observation. It is only for use with telescopes for high magnification photographic work. The ND5.0 Safety Film is of a higher density and is suitable for 16
I then glued 2 of the doughnut's together using contact adhesive to give me the required depth (here you could use thicker ply if available negating the need for glue) and drilled 3 pilot holes in the 3rd doughnut.
I had to cut a notch out of the filter to allow for the raised lip around my scope end cover. This allowed the filter to sit over the 40mm hole flat.
This left me with 2 doughnuts. 1 at 6mm depth with the pilot holes and the other 12mm deep. Using the doughnuts as a template I cut a square of solar film large enough to cover the full 75mm diameter.
And here is the finished article. The 46mm internal diameter ensures a nice snug and tight fit over the hole. I will have to keep an eye on the fit as it may become loose over time through use and I’m looking at perhaps making a MkII out of nylon. Another safety feature I’m also considering is a bolt that runs right through the filter and end cover so the whole lot is bolted together..
Sandwiching the solar film between the 2 doughnuts I screwed the top piece right through the film and into the wood behind and trimmed of the excess solar film. If you decide to have a go at making one yourself you do so at your own risk. You need to ensure the filter is checked for pin holes or any damage before every use. I do this by shining a bright torch through the filter first and if that’s ok ill hold it up to the sun and check the whole surface of the filter. 17
Here are a couple of images I have taken to date using this filter. The first showing some sunspot groups and the other shows the transit of Venus.
I hope you have found this method useful, thanks for reading. Steve Bassett, Worthing Astronomers.
18
19
Above: Widefirld image of the lower Orion area by Dave Parker Below: NGC 281, also know as the Pacman nebula by Scott Prideaux.
20
Above: Lovely close up of the Horsehead nebula by Dave Parker.
Left: First moon image by Phil Herbert with his new camera.
21
Above: Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) captured by Rob Aro on November 13th 2013. Below: Comet C/2013 R1 (Lovejoy) captured by Linda Harmening Sinkay on 29th November 2013.
22
Left: A beautiful capture of NGC 7380 known also as the Wizard nebula by Dave Parker.
Below: The horsehead and flame nebulas captured in Ha by Roger Brooker.
23
Two comets to keep an eye on Well I guess the first comet to talk about would be of course Comet C/2012 S1 ISON.
The next one to mention is Comet C/2013 R1 Lovejoy.
As a lot of us already know comets are unpredictable at the best of times, comet ISON is not being the exception to this rule either it seems!
This one has been over shadowed a bit lately because ISON has been getting most of the press, but it’s certainly one to keep an eye on, currently at around mag 5.2. OK so it’s not going to make naked eye, and yep OK so it’s not got a huge tail, but it looks great in a pair of bino’s and is a lovely target to image if you are able, of course lack of cloud cover permitting!
So as some of you may well be all to aware there have been reports flying around the internet and the media that first ISON had broken up and gone for ever, then it was back, then it was gone again and so on. Basically a lot of people have been jumping the gun and some still are, which is still leading to confusion and mis-reporting on this comet.
Perihelion for the comet is December 25th at 0.877 AU, and its closest approach to Earth is November 19th. On this date, it will also be moving at its maximum apparent speed as seen from Earth, covering about 3 degrees of the sky every 24 hours. So it’s moving pretty quick which can make it a bit of a challenge getting photos of it but it’s worth a go.
Will we see it naked eye? Will we see it again in binoculars or a telescope? To be honest I’m not an expert so I don't know, but like others I’m keeping fingers and toes crossed that ISON continues to do what we all have been hoping it would, and thats to come into view as a beautiful naked eye comet, if it does this I think it will capture peoples imagination and make them look sky ward, but if it doesn’t brighten then it has done a great job already of raising awareness not just to the media, but to the general public as well.
If you want to know where it is in the night sky above your head then two of the best places to go is www.calsky.com or www.heavens-above.com simply enter in your location and click on the comet or object you want to find and you’ll get a custom observing guide.
At the time of writing this though it’s a case of what to write about it now after the events of the last few days starting on 28th Nov. 2013.
There are some other comets up there, there always is, but many or to dim to see expect by using some pretty large scopes under dark skies, so depending on where you are and what sort of equipment you have will determine what you’ll be able to see or image.
For further up to date info on ISON I would suggest using this link
Either way just enjoy looking up at the night sky, it holds simply thousands of amazing objects and sights!
Front cover image of ISON by Damian Peach 24
Yep so as many of you are most likely aware of by now BBC Stargazing Live 2014 is back on our screens between 7th - 9th January and this means of course that there will be hundreds of stargazing events across the UK. As a group we are running three events with some local schools, details of which you can find on our website in the events section, and you’ll be able to find other events local to you by using the BBC Things to do website. Stargazing live events will run from 1st Jan till end of Feb 2014. Let’s all hope this year we actually get some decent weather with clear skies, unlike this years SGL where so many events were either cancelled or postponed on a number of occasions. Anyway, if you can support your local astronomy group/society, these events are all about getting members of the public to look up and marvel at the sights that await them there, and who knows, you may be the person that shows the next Patrick Moore their first object through a telescope! Plus also it’s great fun to show adults and children alike and listen to their “OMG are you kidding me!?” or “WOW’s” etc, so no matter what your experience level is, get involved and enjoy a rewarding night out with like minded people.
25
JTW ECO 1100D CAMERA By
David Barnard Yep it’s a bit of a mouthful but what the hell is it. Well let me start by telling you what it isn’t: it isn’t the camera I ordered!! Let me tell a short storey: I had decided that I was going to throw myself into Astro imaging this year so after making the decision to buy a GOTO EQ mount and new scope I figured a new camera would be the final part of the jigsaw but what to get? Up until then I had been using my trusty Nikon D7000 but really wanted to have a dedicated astro set up so do I go modded DSLR or one-shot ccd or go the whole hog and go mono CCD+filter wheel. Well I won’t bore you dear reader with my tortured thought processes suffice to say I eventually decided to go the modded DSLR route but just as I was making the choice I came across the JTW web site. Now JTW are a new Dutch company building modded DSLR's into custom bodies and then, and this was the big selling point for me, cooling them with a peltier cooler. Their top of the range model the Ultimate was far too expensive (but has since been reduced to a very wallet tempting price!) but was also very power hungry and would have flattened my (then) battery in a matter of a few hours. However they had a thing called an ICE Cube which was shown fitted to a standard Canon DSLR body and was lower powered and had the advantage that all the standard DSLR benefits (card storage and no need for a laptop) were still available. I was somewhat excited by the prospect but on enquiry, I found that the ICE Cube blocked access to the remote release USB if side fitted and would have clobbered my mount if underslung but a solution was offered: JTW could build me a custom one (for the same price) with the cooling unit built like a standard DSLR battery grip, I bit there hand off of course. Unfortunately, after some too-ing and fro-ing over the next few months it became apparent that JTW were struggling to get it to work so kindly offered me an upgrade to the Ultimate but with a lower powered cooler and this is what I now have. So OK that's the story but, again what the hell is it I hear you ask. Well it’s a stripped out Canon 1100D DSLR fitted into a custom aircraft grade aluminium body. The sensor has a cold finger attached to the back which is cooled with a single stage 40watt peltier cooler (the top model has a 2 stage 70watt cooler!) and looks like nothing else with its retro 60's style cooling fin on the rear. The main advantage of cooling any camera is the reduction in sensor noise. Whilst its a lower powered ver26
sion it still cools the chip down to around -25 deg C below ambient and dark frames show little or no obvious noise depending on ISO used. Initial images show real promise and I’m really happy with the results so far. The camera comes with the rather excellent BackYard EOS software and a joy to use and whilst I wasn’t too keen to have a laptop in the filed I can run the capture & guiding software from my basic netbook without issue and I have to confess to being a convert to netbook control. The camera is easy to use just plug in the power and USB cables & let the camera come to temperature set the capture software and away you go. So any down sides?? well, despite it being a lowered power cooler I had to upgrade my 17Ah batteries with a 110Ah leisure battery and the 1100d has a full spectrum astro modification and is a little sensitive to Infra-red so I needed an IR blocking filter but so far there is very little to report on the negative front. Only time will tell as to reliability but if you’re in the market for a one shot colour (OSC) CCD this camera really MUST be on your short list as it offers all the OCS CCD benefits of a cooled sensor but with a larger sensor for less money and is available with other Canon DSLR's as donor innards. Me; I’m dead chuffed that JTW couldn’t get my initial order to work as I feel I have a very capable astro camera which should keep me interested for a good few years; although I hope they persevere to get the ICE CUBE to work as I feel this would be a super versatile product
A couple of my images taken with the JTW Eco 1100D camera. The Cocoon nebula on the left was the first image I took using it and the Flame and Horsehead nebula using a 7 nm Ha filter 27
28
Geminids, December 13th/14th.
Quadrantids, 2nd/3rd January.
This meteor shower starts around the 7th December and goes on till around the 16th but the main peak will be on the evening of the 13th and early hours of the 14th.
The best time for this meteor shower has a very short window, lasting only for around 8hrs, so the best time will be after midnight and leading up to dawn on the 3rd Jan.
There will be a bright 89% moon getting in the way of a lot of the less bright meteors, but the geminids have been known to produce around 100 meteors per hour, and they tend to be slow and bright. So if the skies are clear it will be worth taking a look.
Fortunately there will be no moon in the sky for us as it was a new moon on the 1st. This meteor show has the chance to produce around 50 - 100 per hour, so again if you are able to stay up late, or early, depending on how you see it, then it might well be worth looking outside.
As their name suggests they seem to appear from the constellation Gemini, but of course can appear in any part of the sky at any time, you’ll know if you have seen a geminid by tracing it backwards across the sky and seeing if it came from the direction of Gemini.
This shower is thought to have originated from Comet C/1490 Y1 which was first observed some 500 years ago.
These meteors also do not originate from a comet like most of the other meteor showers, they come from an asteroid named 3200 Phaethon.
Showing the sky at 11pm on 2nd from UK. The star charts produced using Stellarium, a free to download planetarium. For more info on meteors and how to photograph them please use this link and go to page 21
Showing the sky at 11pm on 13th from UK
August 2013 Newsletter 29
Worthing Astronomers
International Observe the Moon Night event 12th October 2013 International Observe the moon night (InOMN) is an initiative started in the USA back in 2010. As the name suggests its purpose is to encourage people from all walks of life to look up at our nearest celestial neighbour and appreciate its beauty which is often overlooked or taken for granted. The event is always held as close as possible to the first quarter Moon in October and this year the Worthing Astronomers decided to register and hold their own event on the busy seafront promenade. We decided to hold the event over two evenings to give us a better chance of getting some clear weather. The run up to the first evening on the Friday was not looking promising, going by the weather forecast both the Friday and Saturday were showing rain right through which was a real downer for all who had put the time into organising the event. It was decided on the Friday morning that we would have to cancel as rain was almost a certainty for the whole weekend. This was true for Friday but to our surprise the famously unpredictable British weather started to improve as we approached Saturday evening. Despite our decision to cancel some of us decided to try our luck and head down to the seafront and set up and we were glad we did!
I arrived at around 19:30 to an already impressive line-up of telescopes all trained on a slightly hazy first quarter Moon with members of the public starting to take interest in what we were doing.
30
As the evening progressed we started to get quite busy and the skies cleared completely to give us some great views with excellent seeing, lots of wows from passers-by who for the most part had never seen the Moon through a telescope or binoculars. It really is a great feeling to share this hobby with people who perhaps would never of even thought about it until that moment they stepped up to the eyepiece. In total we had around 8 telescopes set up and a selection of binoculars for the public to use. The cloud did finally end our evening at around 22:30 but we were happy with what we had achieved considering only 12 hours previous we thought it was going to be a wash out. Thanks to all who came along to help, looking forward to next years!
For more information on InOMN visit their website at www.observethemoonnight.org Visit the Worthing Astronomers website at www.worthingastronomers.org.uk or their Facebook group www.facebook.com/groups/ Skywatchers101/
The date for next year has been set for 5th September 2014 31
A brief guide to stacking comet images using
As a bit of a follow on from John Slinn’s earlier guide to using DeepSky Stacker and because of the various comet’s in our night skies at the moment I thought it would be an idea to show how I stack my comet images. Like most things in astro photography there is always more than one way or system to do the same thing, it mainly comes down to personal preference, so this is my way of doing things and has worked well for me . The first thing you’ll need to do is select all of the images you want to use in the stack (fig 1)so click on “Open picture files” and a selection box will open. If you are going to use all of the files in your image folder you can select all by using “Ctrl A”. Fig 1
Once you have been through all of the images as per John’s earlier guide you’ll need to register these frames. Click “Check all” to select all of the images and then click “Register checked pictures”, when you do this a small window will open as shown on the right. (fig 2) Make sure that “Stack after registering” is unchecked at this stage and then click on “OK”, DSS will now go through each image doing a star count and adding a score to each frame. 32
Fig 2
Next we need to look at each image in turn and select the comet in each frame, this can take a while if like me you tend to take 50 or 60 odd frames but it has to be done. Click on each image in turn using the bottom part of the screen where all the frames are listed, (fig 3)it will take a couple of seconds to load. If the comet is looking faint on your screen you can use the slider in the top right corner to brighten the image, this will not affect the final image in anyway.. Next click on the Comet Icon found in the lower right corner of the image screen, if unsure which it is Fig 3 just let your pointer hover over the icons there to see a description of each one. Now you will need to locate the comet within the image, DSS will have green circles around what it thinks could be comets so you’ll need to hover over the comet with your cursor and click on it. As you’ll see in the top left of the image screen a zoom box will appear to assist you in doing this. Once you are happy with the selection do make sure that you now click on the “Save Icon” just above the comet icon in the bottom left of the image screen. (fig 4).
As you will find out later, as I have done a few times, if you fail to save after each selection of the comet in each image the selection will NOT be saved and you’ll have to do it all again!
Fig 4
33
So here we are, we’ve now gone through each image and made sure we have selected the comet and saved after each selection, now time to stack the images. You can add any darks, bias and flats at this stage if you use them, just go through the same process as you did to select the main images. Once you are happy and have all images files loaded click on “Stack checked pictures” (fig 5), at first you may well have a similar small window open as shown in fig 2, but by clicking on the “Recommended settings” and “Stacking parameters” other options will show (fig 5). Fig 5 If you’re new to DSS then a lot of the time the default settings will work well, but if you’d like to know more about each setting then there is a great help file within DSS, simply click on “DeepSky Stackers help” bottom left corner. The main thing to choose is how you want your comet images stacked, there is a choice of three different ways as shown in fig 5. Most people tend to use the last option “Stars + Comet stacking”. Be warned, this is very memory and processor intensive! The time it will take to complete the stack will depend on the number of images being processed along with the spec of your PC/Laptop. Even with my i7 8 core, 16gb ram laptop DSS will sometimes Fig 6 show as “Not responding”, don’t panic, just let it be and it will carry on and complete the stacking, it’s just likely to take time, but it’s worth the wait. During the stacking you’ll see a similar screen to the one shown in fig 6 with the green progress bars. So time now to pop the kettle on and make a cuppa while DSS does it’s thing. 34
So here we are, maybe 10mins later on, maybe 30mins later, but finally we have the finished stacked image in front of us on our screen (fig 7) And now you’re thinking “Was it worth all the hassle?” Yep the final image in DSS doesn’t look like anything much does it, but it will don’t worry! You’ll see the image has been saved in the same file as your original images and it’ll be called “Autosave.tiff ”. You can now close DSS and open the software you use for image processing.
Fig 7
You’ll notice on the image now that there is a kind of frame effect around part of the edge, this is caused by the comet stack process in DSS when you have chosen “Stars + Comet stacking” and is more pronounced with a higher frame count but is easily removed using the crop tool in your chosen image processing software. Now processing any astronomy image can be done is so many ways and using various software such as Photoshop, PixInsight and Maxim. When you first open your final stack image it is al35
ways worth duplicating it, this way you will always have the original safe. Also you will find that DSS saves it as a 32bit Tiff file, so you may need to convert it to a 16bit Tiff for use in your processing software. Processing any astronomy image as I have mentioned is always down to an individuals experience level, the software they have available to them and of course how they themselves would like the final image to look like. There is a vast amount of information and video lessons available on the web for the various photo processing software so it will always be worth looking. Also you might belong to an astronomy group and they may well have some resources or members who are willing to help you out with the basics. Also maybe think about doing an image search of your target in something like Google image search, this will give you an idea of how others have made their final image look, it’s a good reference tool. The basics mainly meaning using “Levels and Curves” and “Color balance” to make small adjustments to your image. Take your time, make a small adjustment each time, duplicate the image as you go so that you always have the copy previous to any changes you make should you wish to easily go back to that one. Here is my final image of Comet C/2013 R1 Lovejoy which I have used in the screen shots showing the stacking process.
I hope you have found this useful and I hope you are able to get some lovely images of a comet sometime in the future. Andy Lee 36
www.bambinosbooks.co.uk Still looking for some stocking fillers? Or maybe a nice new year gift for your child or even bigger child? Books make fantastic gifts so take a look and place an order! Build Your Own Spaceships Sticker Book Young space fans can create their own amazing spaceships in this skyrocketing sticker book. 10 full pages of stickers, including laser guns, rocket boosters, viewing ports and more will keep children entertained for hours. Includes spaceships inspired by famous science fiction stories, as well as actual spaceships and satellites that exist today.
Space Where does outer space begin? How do rockets work? What’s a gas giant? What do astronauts do all day? This densely illustrated book answers these and other questions about the wonders of outer space with diagrams, picture-strip stories, photographs and giant fold-out illustrations. Includes internet links to the latest space information.
Big Book of Stars and Planets Discover the wonders of space in this incredible picture book, with giant fold-out pages to satisfy the curiosity of every young space enthusiast. From the Sun and planets in our Solar System, to massive stars and enormous galaxies, there’s a whole universe to discover. A substantial gift that children will pore over for hours.
Astronomy and space sticker book Rocket into the wonders of space with this exciting introduction to astronomy, including over 130 stickers of stars, rockets, planets and much more to complete the pages. Encounter great galaxies, the burning sun and gas giants, discover how stars are born, what it’s like to live in space and much more. A fun and engaging way for children to learn about the solar system. 37
www.bambinosbooks.co.uk 100 Things to Spot in the Night Sky Cards A pack of 50, double-sided, pocket-sized cards to help identify constellations, planets, meteors and other starry sights. Each card shows a feature of the night sky, one to a side, including a detailed picture and description, interesting facts, statistics and position in the night sky. An easy, convenient and informative companion for stargazing, with or without a telescope. With internet links to star maps and websites to find out more.
Night sky sticker book A fantastic book with over 120 features of the night sky to spot, with simple descriptions and accurate sticker illustrations. Children (and adults) can spot the various constellations, planets and satellites and place the coloured stickers next to each entry. Doubling as a spotters’ guide, each entry has a space for readers to log where and when they spotted the night sky feature
First Encyclopedia of space A bright, lively introduction to space with simple text, amazing photographs and detailed illustrations. Provides simple explanations to questions such as “What are stars made of?” “Why does the Moon shine?” and “What do space toilets look like?” Includes free downloadable pictures and internet links to carefully selected fun websites.
For more information, on these or any other Usborne books, please contact me on 07802 833947, or janetslinn@live.com, or through my website www.bambinosbooks.co.uk 38