AnnMarie's Blog

We took a quick trip to our local RSPB reserve this week. Just a quick afternoon trip but very enjoyable none the less, if you’re in the area please do consider visiting this fantastic resource. You can find out more by clicking here.

Whilst there are many different species to spot, from squirrels & songbirds to a variety of birds of prey, it was the geese that caught my attention on this beautiful February afternoon.

From this lovely Greylag Goose (above) who was fairly determined to stand with its back to me until it heard me rustle in the reeds, up popped its head whilst I froze for fear of scaring it off; but this picture was the result To the goose that I shared my school playing grounds with (see below):

Yes the Canada Goose and this one decided to have a lovely stretch of the wings in the evening sunshine. There really wasn’t a goose shortage today. As the sun set, we were right down on the river estuary the river waters turning a fiery orange as the sun met the horizon.

Swans, Mallard, Pochard and more, came flighting in as dusk fell; but true to the day it was geese who dominated the evening too, with hundreds coming in from the neighbouring area.

Ynys Hir, definitely somewhere to spend some more time.

The last few days I’ve been testing some new photography equipment. The weather has been fairly damp & murky, until today, which was beautiful. Anyway I decided that one of my test subjects should be some of the birds in and around the garden / hedgerows. Amongst others that includes:

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Here are a few images, be sure to click the link at the bottom to view the interactive image of a Dunnock:

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As I said today was a distinct improvement and I could do some winter hedgerow shots:

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Have you ever looked really closely at a small bird? Their fine feathers and exquisite colours are so beautiful. Click here for high resolution image of a Dunnock. The image is scrollable & zoomable and having been taken at a focal length of 1000mm, there’s quite a bit of detail (more detail downloaded each time you zoom, so give it a little while).

I’m really looking forward to spring now! Lots of photography opportunities.

BTW: Shameless plug here – if you’d like to purchase prints of my images, many are available for direct purchase from my business site: Celestial Galleries

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Technorati tags: Birds, Ornithology, Twitching, Photography

For sometime I’ve been intending to build myself a sturdy dual mount and all the recent cloudy weather has left me with the opportunity. I wanted to be able to put 2 cameras onto my CG5 equatorial mount, both with similar alignment. The system needs to be rigid yet very quick to change over between configurations. Typical immediate combinations might be:

• Digital SLR plus Starlight Video Camera
• Digital SLR plus Lodestar guide camera

In the future it might also be asked to carry an astro CCD camera attached to a Canon Lens. Having been pleased with Manfrotto equipment for my daytime photography, I decided to base the plan on their accessories; here’s the starting point:

• Over length dovetail to fit mount – in my case the CG5
• 1/4 inch 20tpi & 3/8 inch 16tpi UNC head cap screws or bolts (to fit std & pro photographic tripod fittings)
• Manfrotto 323 Quick Change Plate Adapter
• Manfrotto 357 Universal Sliding Plate

The Manfrotto quick fit plates are really very secure devices with safety clips too. If any slippage does occur there are also compatible Manfrotto anti-twist spotting scope plates available. At this point can I also recommend Stagonset fasteners to anyone in the UK who is looking for good quality fixings like the UNC cap screws.

Now to put it all together. I drilled an extra hole in the dovetail at one end to take the slide plate fixings. Originally I had intended this to be 3/8 but I decided that might weaken the dovetail too much, so the slideplate thread was reduced to 1/4 with a bronze insert and then a 1/4 fixing was used. Spring washers were used to ensure a substantial hold. I also replaced the smaller screws that were supplied with the dovetail, these give extra purchase to remove any risk of movement. Here’s a picture:

Next the procedure was repeated at the other end of the dovetail, to mount the quick change plate but on the underside this time. The whole setup was now checked for alignment and then the fixings tightened right up. Here’s a picture of the complete assembly:

I was then really lucky, in that the next night I had just a one hour break in the clouds so I could briefly try the thing out. Everything seems very secure, the slide plate allows me extra adjustment to find good balance with a large lens & DSLR whilst the bottom quick change plate works well giving plenty of clearance for the smaller camera. Below are two images of the setup that I tested it with, Canon 20D 100-400L plus Mintron & C lens:

A quick word about the Mintron starlight camera, this is a fabulous piece of kit. If you have children who want to see the view or maybe a group of friends around for a party, this really beats everyone queuing up & squinting through the eyepiece. It is highly sensitive & can internally stack up to 128 frames realtime whilst outputting this video to a TV screen. Below is an image of the plough (big dipper) on TV from the other night (apologies for poor quality but TV screens don’t photograph too well)

The Mintron’s C lenses are interchangeable & it can also be attached to the back of a scope too. Perhaps I’ll do a separate write up on it, after I’ve captured some video with a capture card. I have seen a perfectly respectable M27 with it on the back of the C6SCT and Tamsin certainly loves viewing with it.

So that’s that for now, I’m currently waiting for the arrival of my adapter to mount the Lodestar & 300mm mirror lens together. Once that’s made it here from Australia, I should be able to start guiding. If only the skies would clear …

Technorati tags: Starlight Camera, DIY, AstroPhotography

As readers of my blog will be aware, I enjoy imaging natural things. For me ” Natural World” includes the very big (like galaxies) and the really rather small (like cells). I’ve decided to include some Microscopy (or Photomicrography) in my blog, so by way of a start I thought I’d include some images of chromosomes, the data bookshelves of life on our planet.

Chromosomes require fairly substantial magnification and the simplest way to achieve acceptable resolution at x1000 with a standard optical microscope is to use oil immersion microscopy; this is how the following images were taken …

Chromosomes during Mitosis

Mitosis is the process of duplicating & splitting the nucleus / genetic material of a eukaryotic cell. It is normally followed by cytokinesis which completes cell division, resulting in 2 identical daughter cells. Mitosis is used for growth & asexual reproduction, it is distinct from meiosis (used for sexual reproduction) and binary fission of prokaryotic cells. Other than the ‘normal’ interphase state of cells, Mitosis has 4 main phases & these allows us to view & photograph chromosomes:

• Prophase – During interphase the genetic material will have been duplicated, now the nucleus swells and the chromatin within, coils up to form chromosomes; each consisting of two chromatids. Simultaneously the centrosome duplicates & each resulting diplosome moves towards opposite ends of the nucleus.
• Metaphase – In most cases the nucleus has now become indistinct. The chromosomes line up across the centre of the cell and protein spindle fibres develop across the cell, coordinated by the centrosome at either side of the cell.
• Anaphase – Each chromatid pair splits, forming sister chromosomes. The protein spindle threads now pull the chromosome sisters apart, to opposite ends of the cell.
• Telophase – Each group of chromosomes are now at either end of the cell, they are now enveloped by a new nuclear envelope. The chromosomes now uncoil back in to chromatin and are no longer distinct for us to see.

To complete cell division the cells cytoplasm will now cleave and two new sister cells will form; this is cytokinesis.

So what of it? Well the chromosomes are particularly distinct during Metaphase & Anaphase and that gives us a great opportunity to photograph them. The process doesn’t take very long, Metaphase can be over in 15 minutes; so we need to look at a whole bunch of cells & pick out the few that have been ‘caught in the act’ as it were. The micrograph below is of onion cells dividing mitotically near the root tip …

Click image for a larger view …

The image was taken at 1000 times magnification (x10 ocular, x100 objective) and used oil immersion to improve the image (see below). The cell in the centre of the picture displays distinct blue stained chromosomes and just possible to make out is the occasional spindle fibre. Two other cells can be seen at different stages.

Giant Chromosomes in Fruit Flies

Drosophilia, the favourite of geneticists across the ages are one of a few insects that have an unusual characteristic. They develop ‘giant’ or polytene chromosomes in their salivary glands. DNA is replicated many times, without cell division taking place. This can lead to large banded chromosomes with perhaps 1000 times the normal compliment of DNA, 85% of which may be concentrated in to the dark bands. These give us another excellent opportunity to photograph chromosomes.

  Click image for a larger view …

Image details: Magnification x1000, Light Microscopy with Oil Immersion, Canon 300D  ISO 100  TV 1.3s, 4 image stack using CombineZM

Technique & Equipment

How were these images taken? The basic equipment is pictured below:

Click image for a larger view …

Referring to the image above, from bottom to top: Light Source, Slide, Oil, Objective Lens, Ocular lens, photo adapter, DSLR

ie. Immersion Oil is carefully placed here (picture below), between objective lens & slide coverslip.

Click image for a larger view …

The microscope is carefully focused away from the slide until best focus is found. One draw back of this method is that the focal plane is absolutely tiny. The advantages are simple, at high magnifications light microscopes loose resolution due to refraction at the glass air boundaries; by using immersion oil with the same refractive index as the glass, 2 such boundaries are removed & resolution is restored.

I shall add more microscopy images in time to come.

Those of you who follow my blog will remember that I enjoy infra-red photography, cf Seeing Red. I have recently acquired a digital camera that has been converted to image in a broader spectrum than our visible one. It is sensitive from 300nm UV to 1100nm IR; by using front filters the range can be limited for a particular bandwidth. The camera was supplied by IRDIGI, who I can recommend for a polite & efficient service. It is a Fuji FinePix S9600, you can find reviews of it (in normal guise) here. Here’s an example image from my first few days with the camera:

The conventional way of displaying IR images is as a B&W image, in the image above I have lightly toned the monochrome output. Notice how the vegetation is very light coloured, this is because it reflects large amounts of Infra-red. Another item of note is how contrasty skies can be made. The sky in the image above appeared very icy blue with only a feint sign of high level clouds, yet they show up clearly in the image. Of course you don’t have to stick with the subtle; in the image below I have used heavy toning to create a particular mood for the image:

And you don’t have to stick with toned images, false colour IR photography is another technique again. In the image below digital manipulation returns a blue sky whilst maintaining the bright IR reflectivity of the plant life.

This camera / technique is capable of much more and I shall be exploring this in the months to come, I shall also be adding some different bandwidth filters to experiment with.

General Points:

• This camera is not for me to do Astrophotography with, that is not its forte. I shall be taking mainly Landscape & Nature shots with it.
• To take pure IR images, one needs a screw on filter on the lens to block visual light, the above were taken with a 750nm cutoff filter.
• With no filter you will take visual & IR, an interesting possibility.
• The camera IR output is a colour file with a very red hue, post processing reveals what you wish.
• With the correct filter, normal visual palette images may be taken.
• A ‘normal’  digital camera or a film camera with standard film will not record infra-red light. In fact you wouldn’t want it to.
• Having a non SLR converted allows for a degree more flexibility in this situation, but do research the options if you’re interested.

The image below is of our 820nm IR medical Laser. My Canon 20D doesn’t record any of the intense IR light from it and my eyes don’t see the Laser as ‘on’ but the IR camera records the diverging light hitting the prism and being redirected:

Note: If you have access to such a device, do wear the correct safety goggles & don’t look directly at the beam.

Oh well that’s enough for now, watch this space for more info & images in the coming months.

A little time ago I wrote an article for a Home Education magazine. It was a light look at how I started taking pictures of the sky and how others could easily join in. I thought this might be worth posting to my blog – so here it is …

    A sight to stare at. Early morning at home, after a night’s astrophotography.

“Always got her head in the clouds”

I was six years old and sitting in the classroom of my local village school. It had a large window which looked out across meadows & farmland. Today was summertime and I was watching the buttercups nod in a light breeze, bathed in a beautiful golden sunshine. My mind wandered, how amazing it all is from the beautiful flowers to the Sun and heaven knows what other fascinating things in the sky above.

“Jones!” yelled the teacher,”You’re not listening!”

“I am Miss” I replied, followed by a verbatim quote of the last 30 seconds of her lecturing.

Then I was punished, for showing off. I never really did get the attitude of schools & some teachers. What I did have was a fascination, a curiosity for all things ‘nature’, including the sky. Here started my voyage into Astronomy & Cosmology.

If you’re out under a clear dark sky one night soon, move away from any artificial light, turn off your torch and stare upwards. Your eyes will gradually become accustomed to the dark and more stars will come into view. Look for the milky patch across the sky, that’s the Milky Way, our own galaxy. It contains about 200 billion stars. The Universe beyond? Well there’s more stars there than all the grains of sand on all the beaches of our planet. And stars don’t account for half the matter out there.

Pictures & a thousand words

Another interest of mine is the use of cameras. I guess it really developed when I was a teenager but I have only fully indulged it within the last decade or so. Photographs can record a moment in time, a memory, that’s what most of us use them for. But that’s not all they can do. Some use them to provoke strong emotions, more than any passage of pros might do; take anti-war journalism for example. For others, the camera can show us sights that our eyes can’t – this is where one of my interests lies. Freeze the motion of a running animal with a fast shutter speed, take a macro shot of an insect feeding on a flower, point the camera down a microscope to reveal the tiny world around us; all these techniques & more, expand our awareness, our comprehension of the things around us. I suppose it was only a matter of time before I wished to put camera & telescope together.

If you have a camera that can take long exposures (more than say 30 seconds), take it out on a dark starry night, put it on something secure preferably a tripod, set the zoom to wide angle & point the camera upwards about 50 to 55 degrees (in the UK) & northwards. Experiment with the exposure time but start with 15 minutes or so.

The resulting image will show stars apparently rotating around a point (the celestial pole) in the sky. You’ve just taken your first astrophotography picture and have also demonstrated the spin of our planet on her axis!

With just a camera & tripod you can also take good pictures of the moon, aurora (if you’re lucky) and even record a few planets (Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars) but they won’t look very big, for that you’ll need a telescope.

Stardust Fairies

Tamsin (our daughter) has, like most children, a wonderful imagination and it helps her jump from one thought to another. This was the case here. She had been thoroughly enjoying reading a series of books about “Stardust Fairies”. Within the tales, each fairy has their own special star; Regulus being one of them. Tamsin wanted to see Regulus (Alpha Leonis) so we checked on its positioning, first star of the constellation Leo, and pointed it out to her. Did you know that Regulus used to be called Cor Leonis, the lion’s heart, so it’s a star for all you courageous home-ed families out there.

We then became involved in a project to survey the darkness of Britain’s skies. To complete the survey you needed to count the number of stars that you can see in Orion’s belt. Tamsin loved it and from here it was but a small step to her wanting a telescope to further her interests in Astronomy.

We bought a 6 inch Schmidt Cassegrain (SCT) scope & an equatorial mount to put it on. There are several different types of scope; the SCT is probably the jack of all trades. It is good for planet viewing & deep sky objects and suited to visual or photographic use. The equatorial mount allows the scope to slowly track across the sky counteracting the rotation of our planet (as you photographed above).

The Low Down

So what do you need to get started? Well the great thing about astrophotography is that it’s easy, simple & cheap; it’s also difficult, complex and expensive. Did you get that? What I mean is that this is an interest that you can start off easily and grow it to become as involved as you wish.

Obviously some sort of camera is a necessity, your current one is probably sufficient for getting started. Modern digital cameras are great, they give you immediate feedback, are fairly sensitive and many have access to multiple settings. Read on for details of different techniques and what’s involved.

The Moon	Setting Sun (with sunspots)

Please note: never look at the sun or image it without specialised filters – it could blind you.

Techniques

Wide field

Just a camera & lens can be used to take a broad picture of the night sky. Short exposures can be made on a tripod but longer exposures will need some sort of tracking mount. This can be as simple as a ‘barn door mount’ (search the web for plans on how to construct this for about £15) but is frequently done by ‘Piggybacking’ your camera on a telescope & mount whilst tracking. This requirement to track the sky for exposures above a handful of seconds is common to all astrophotography where you don’t wish to see the effects of Earth rotating.

Afocal

Your telescope is all set-up and you’re viewing an interesting site through the eyepiece, the simplest way of recording this is t
o hold your digicam to the eyepiece & take a picture. There are things that you can do to refine this:

· Buy a digiscoping adapter to firmly hold your digicam to the eyepiece ~£30

· Match your camera lens to a suitable widefield eyepiece, specialist ones are available

· Set your digicam’s aperture wide open

· Use your digicam’s manual focus, set it to infinity & focus with the telescope

· Use a remote release or your digicam’s internal timer – avoid vibrations

Most of all experiment with different settings & targets, get to know what effect each change makes and have fun.

Prime

This is the main technique for serious astrophotography. The telescope is all set-up and the camera is attached via an adapter directly to the telescope. There is no camera lens between scope & camera; the telescope focuses light directly on to the camera’s sensor or film. The camera itself may be a SLR (Digital or Film), a specialist cooled astronomy CCD, or in some cases a webcam type video camera.

   A collection of Messier objects

SLR

Most people would accept that the Digital SLR now has an advantage over film. You will need a ‘T’ adapter for your camera make, to attach it to the scope camera adapter. You will also need a remote shutter release cable. The ability to connect the camera directly to a computer is also helpful. A 90 degree viewfinder attachment can also help to avoid the need for limbo dancing lessons. (That or a good osteopath). Focusing can be awkward – autofocus is unlikely to work for all but the brightest objects. It is best to find a bright star & focus on that, then leave the focus alone for the night if possible – do take a test shot to check your focus. There are computer programs that can help you with this. Also worth noting is that most standard cameras have an infra-red filter (needed for normal daylight photography) and this reduces their astronomical sensitivity. Only Canon have made a specialist astronomy DSLR, the 20Da, but several conversions are available, particularly by a company called Hutech.

Astro CCD

These devices are very sensitive to light; they are typically cooled to 20 degrees below ambient for noise reduction. They are however, very expensive & can only be used for this one purpose. At £1000 – £4000 this is definitely the hard core end of the hobby. They are controlled from a computer and can produce stunning images. Imaging is usually done by taking four sets of images using a filter wheel, 1 set for luminance & then 1 each for Red, Green & Blue; however ‘one shot colour’ CCD’s are available. Do not however under estimate what can be achieved with a DSLR.

Webcam/Video

This is a relatively new technique and is especially suited to planetary imaging. A short spell of video, perhaps 1000 frames, is recorded straight to PC. Each frame is then analysed by a computer program and the best are stacked together to build a detailed image. The advantage of this is that moments of good ‘seeing’ (I.e. when the atmosphere is still) can be caught and used, whilst more ‘wobbly’ moments can be discarded. The standard software for analysis & stacking is called Registax. You can build your own camera or buy a commercial one such as Celestron’s Neximage (about £90).

CCD / DSLR Processing

Typically when imaging a deep space object (DSO), you will be taking multiple exposures of the object. These exposures are called lights and they will be stacked together in a computer to create a far more detailed image. You should also be taking exposures called darks & flats. Darks are taken at the same temperature & settings as your lights, these will be used to correct the lights for hot pixels & circuit noise. Flats are taken at the lowest ISO setting of your camera and are of an evenly illuminated object, a lightbox or the evening sky just after sunset. These flats are used to correct your lights for vignetting and dirt on the imaging train. You should also take darks for the flats, no I’m not kidding! There’s various software available to help you with this process some commercial some freeware, Deep Sky Stacker is an easy start but my preference is for Iris.

Telescopes

I am not going to go into telescope choice very deeply here, everyone has there own preference & budget. But there are a few pointers:

· Don’t buy a Department Store special, do buy a proper astronomical scope

· Refractors will give you stunning sharp images but they’re expensive per inch of aperture and you’ll want an APO version to keep colour issues to a minimum

· Newtonians are cheap for large apertures but don’t always convert into a photographic instrument without hitches

· Catadioptics are a large group that inhabit the middle ground and are my preference, there are different types:

o Maksutovs are good visual instruments but can be a bit slow for imaging

o Schmidt-Cassegrains are a good all round scope that won’t break the bank, this was our choice.

o Ritchey-Cretiens are the desire of many an astrophotographer. Not cheap but superb for imaging – this is the basic design of Hubble.

   6 inch SCT with piggybacked 400mm Canon lens – all on CG5 equatorial mount

Guiding

Sooner or later you may wish to take images that require an individual exposure time of more than a minute or two & a reasonably long focal length e.g. 1500mm or more. At this point the tracking of your telescope mount may not be accurate enough, now you need a guiding system as well. This will either manually or automatically correct the telescope position at short intervals, on top of the equatorial tracking. The details of this are many, definitely beyond the scope of this article but you should be aware that several methods exist and there are several interest groups on the internet that will be willing to advise you.

Summary

I have tried to give you a brief outline of Astrophotography. There are many wonders to see, they are inspiring, they put us into our proper perspective and they are beautiful. A telescope alone is a fantastic resource for any home educator, but add a camera to the plot and you will see many more beautiful wonders.

Resources:

Books:

Stardust Magic by Moonlight                                  Linda Chapman   ISBN 0141317795          Well, it inspired Tamsin

Starware                                                                     Philip Harrington   ISBN 0471418064          A guide to all the kit

Digital A
strophotography The State of the Art   David Ratledge      ISBN 1852337346          You really need this book

Stars & Planets                                                          Ian Ridpath            ISBN 0751327123          Finding your way around

Astronomy for Dummies                                         Stephen Maran      ISBN 0764584650          A crash course in the basics

What are you waiting for? Go put your head in the clouds.

Popped out to Dolgellau last week, late afternoon was dull cloudy & wet, yet within a little over an hour, a beautiful but fleeting sunset developed.

Typical changeable autumn conditions for us. The picture above is of the old bridge over the Afon Mawddach, between Dolgellau & Llanelltyd. A  fly fisherman stands in front of the bridge enjoying the evening. These days the bridge is closed to motorised traffic and it is very peaceful despite being only just off the A470.

At home in Aberllefenni, the autumn colours have been richening up. This image shows some of our horses enjoying the autumn grass. The paddock is bordered by deciduous woodland, mainly oak, ash and hazel. Beyond that, the mountain is planted with spruce, larch and pine. All the trees have their own distinctive autumn shades, with the spruce & pine remaining green.

Even some of the horses are trying to blend in!

Have you ever wondered why the leaves change colour in autumn? It’s due to the range of pigments that are in the leaves. Chlorophyll is the main pigment that plants use to help them harness sunlight to produce carbohydrates. Chlorophyll appears green, it isn’t very stable though and plants have to continually synthesise it. It’s production falls when temperature & daylight levels drop.  This happens in autumn allowing other pigments to become the dominant leaf colouring agents.

The beech trees are a particular show at the moment.

So what are these other pigments? Carotenoids are a group of yellowy coloured pigments and they are significantly more stable than chlorophyll. Thus some leaves turn yellow as the green fades. What about the reds, I hear you call. Well they are due to a family of pigments called anthocyanins. As the tree prepares for leaf senescence (dropping of its leaves) the amount of sugar in a leaf may build. Depending upon temperature & light levels, this can trigger flavonoids to be converted to anthocyanins. The exact resulting colour tone depends upon the pH (acidity) of the plant sap.

But eventually they’ll all end up on the floor.

Finally a membrane between leaf stem & tree is completed, it now separates the leaves from the tree. As the membrane joint withers the leaves fall from the tree and carpet the floor.

Any how, it all produces a marvelous sight for us to enjoy.

The other day we took some time out to do one of our educational trips. Such a variety of things and just on our doorstep so I thought that I should post about it.

We started off by journeying up towards Clocaenog, a nice trip via Dolgellau & Bala, always inspiring whatever the weather. Just as we neared our first destination we spotted a beautiful little lake, so on with the anchors and enjoy the scenery.

  Click image for larger view …

After watching the ducks for a while we moved on to our main event – looking for the wild horses in the forestry. After a bit of a trek & a search, we found them; or should I say they found us …

  Cute huh! Click on me for my bigger portrait …

These are in fact Przewalski’s horses. They are in excess to the needs of the current UK breeding programs and so they have been released into an area of ancient woodland that they appear to manage better than humans can. Przewalski’s became extinct in the wild due to pressure from mankind but a breeding program has seen the transfer of several groups from UK zoos to be released back into the wild in Hungary. There have also been several smaller releases in a few suitable areas of the UK. Others have also been released in Mongolia, where it is thought that they are now breeding wild. There’s some interesting info about Przewalski’s on the ARKive website.

  Click on my picture, if you’ll risk it …

Przewalski’s are members of the species Equus Ferus (The Wild Horse) and not of Equus Caballus (The Domesticated Horse). They have 66 chromosomes, 2 more than the domestic horse but they can interbreed with domestic horses. As you can see in the picture above, they like to keep a strict herd order. They did however seem to be quite unfussed by our presence. You can read more about this group here.  Przewalski’s are known to have roamed in Britain around 2000BC which is around the time that people were using the archaeological site that we visited next.

Click image for larger view …

A short drive around Llyn Brenig brought us to this fascinating site. The image above shows “The Platform Cairn”. Initially built around 2000BC as an open ring of stones marking the burial place of an adult & a child; it was later filled entirely with stone and an urn of ashes buried beneath. This is not the only archeologically interesting structure here, there are several burial monuments & an ancient structure for mourners to congregate in. All date from 1000-2000BC. Regarding more modern history there are the remains of a medieval welsh long house & enclosure, from perhaps the 14th Century. We stood and shared the sunset with the hillside cattle, wondering what it was like all those years ago.

Click image for larger view …

Our day was coming to an end; night was falling and we needed to return home to check our own horses and have some much needed supper. As we walked back to the car along the shores of Llyn Brenig we watched the sunset intensify, right over Snowdon.

Click image for larger view …

All in all a very enjoyable & educational day. You’ll be able to read more about the archaeology on Tamsin’s Blog & watch a video of the Przewalski’s on Jane’s site.

Water and Electric don’t mix, so why would you run power lines through a puddle!

  Click to see larger image …

Sparks might fly!

My idea for this post is to illustrate that it is very possible to image interesting objects in the night sky, without the use of a telescope or an especially long focal length lens.

Our large neighboring galaxy M31 Andromeda is a good example, this galaxy can be made out with the naked eye, though you won’t be seeing many details that way! I’m going to use my Canon 20D here and yes I could use a big 400mm lens but that would rather defeat the object so here’s the list of kit used:

• Canon 20D
• Canon 24 – 105 L f4 IS
• Canon programmable remote timer trigger TC-80N3
• Celestron CG5 equatorial mount

So yes I have used one specialist piece of kit, the mount, but that really is necessary to track the sky due to earth’s rotation during the exposure time; no guiding system has been used though. The lens will be set at 105mm & wide open at f4; manual focus set and IS turned off. The camera was pre focused visually on a bright star and then the mount slewed to point at Andromeda. Whilst I used mains power for the 20D & recorded images straight to PC, this would still have been possible with a freshly charged battery & a decent compact flash card. The image below is the full frame output after processing (reduced in size of course) :

  Click on image to see larger version …

A total exposure time of 1hr 15mins was achieved by taking 37 separate frames, ISO was set to 1600. As well as these light frames, multiple dark & flat frames were taken. Darks are taken at the same settings & temperature as the lights but with the lens cap on, they are used to correct for hot pixels & noise. Flats are taken with the same zoom & focus as the lights but are at low ISO and are of an evenly lit object e.g. a whiteboard; they are used to correct for dust bunnies & vignetting. All of these images are put together in an excellent piece of freeware called Iris.

The output is then adjusted for contrast & levels in Adobe Photoshop before final output. Below is a crop into Andromeda herself.

  Click on image to see larger version …

As you can see, some of the dust lanes within Andromeda are very clear, the oval & circular bright patches above & below Andromeda are companion galaxies M32 & M110. So there we have it 3 galaxies, 1 picture and a focal length of only 105mm. “Size matters” or so they say but I’m not too sure

Why not have a go at a few photos yourself, it’s great fun.

Floral macro photography can be very rewarding; and there are many different techniques & styles. The other evening it came on to rain lightly, just as darkness was falling, and this gave me the opportunity to take a few shots that I have been waiting to do. Whilst I do take some controlled studio shots I much prefer to take natural uncontrived shots with the subject untouched. This is definitely the place for fine manual focus & ring flash units. I’m not going to babble on, I’d rather let the images speak for themselves …

  Water Lily closing for the night.

  Gladioli bloom in darkness.

A little ambient light is helpful to assist you with manual focus, so dusk is the moment for this. Also don’t forget to avoid getting your equipment too damp! 

  Rose & Droplets

  Iris Leaf

Whilst an SLR, with the right lenses & flash, is definitely no hindrance, you can achieve pretty interesting results with your digicam set to macro/close-up/flower mode. Just be careful of your lighting, the on camera flash will not illuminate an object that is very close to the camera. Experiment with a penlight torch, use a tripod, use the cameras self-timer; there’s lots of creative fun to be had.

I really enjoy macro photography; it can show us worlds that we don’t usually notice. What’s life like for other creatures? A beautiful flower in our garden might be a fast food bar or a solarium for a small insect. Take this afternoon for example, I was enjoying one of my favourite roses.

It has beautiful shades, sometimes looking purple & sometimes blue. The scent is wonderful but you always have to check before smelling it closely, let’s look why …

Inside the flower not only is there a veritable feast of pollen & nectar but it’s also a perfect sun trap. This small fly has found heaven! Hmm I don’t want him up my nose; perhaps I’ll look at a different flower. Nearby is a yellow rambling rose that also has a scent to enjoy but I’m not alone there either. There’s a rather nice hoverfly enjoying the flowers, in fact he’s quite polite and poses for me to take his portrait.

They have the most fantastic compound eyes (click on the image for a closer look) but I don’t suppose that will help him approve of his portrait photo – it’s not sweet & sticky enough.

Well I’ve been posting so much on astronomy recently that I’ve neglected other types of photography. The last few days have been stunning & yesterday Tamsin & I went for a local wander, opportunity for a few landscape shots

This is where I live, a totally inspirational place, whatever the season. The mountain in the distance is Cadair Idris, a popular snowdonian mountain. As you come closer you enter Dyfi forest and in the valley beneath me, there is the village of Aberllefenni. In times gone by all the tops were pasture & many of the slopes were oak forestry (as some still are); but the area is now dominated by coniferous forestry.

This shot was taken in the middle of the day, often morning & evening provide a softer more picturesque & sculpting light but that was not what I wanted here. UV & Polarising filters were used to help balance & enrich the shot. Processing was carried out in Adobe Lightroom but very little was needed. This was taken with a Canon 20D and 24-105 L lens, a favourite combination of mine.

Oh & yes I am currently working on another astrophotograph project.

Last night the moon set behind Corris at about 9 ‘o’ clock, Jupiter was also shining brightly in the same section of sky.

 40s f4.5 ISO200 22mm

This was the view from my home at 9pm last night. The village of Corris is beneath the setting moon, to the right of the image are lights from Aberllefenni; Jupiter is the bright object half way from the moon to the top left corner. The original picture shows at least 25 stars but they may be lost in the small version above.

The small picture below shows the same view in daylight (this morning).

 1/640s f5.6 ISO100 24mm

Atmospheric conditions can effect the colour that the moon appears to us, sometimes creating the beautiful rich hues that we were treated to last night.

I enjoy utilising many different techniques for my photography. One particularly interesting avenue is infra-red exposures. The picture below was taken using Ilford SFX film on a Pentax SuperME camera:

SFX was a B&W film that was specifically sensitised to far red & infra-red wavelengths. The effect, when photographing landscapes in bright sunlight, was for foliage to glow brightly whilst other objects show an enhanced contrast. To me the complete effect is too endow images with a sensual & romantic atmosphere.

This type of output can be recreated digitally in Photoshop, but I’ve never been totally satisfied with these electronic imitations. Yes I still have my Pentax & providing film is available can still use it; but what about my Canon DSLR cameras?

Well, I could have the infra-red filters removed from the CMOS but then I’d have to use filters for normal photography. Yes the conversion would make it great for astrophotography too but there are risks, not to mention budgetary constraints. So in the search for options I’ve tried mounting a Wratten 89b filter to the lens front. The 89b’s main transmission begins at 720nm, thereby blocking most sub deep red wavelenghts. This causes exposure time to rocket, since the camera’s internal filter is trying to filter out the wavelenths above deep red! However with a tripod & patience it is possible:

Its not quite there but I am moving in the correct direction. I just need some more bright sunshine, but this summer isn’t exactly helping me there.

Just a quick post to say that last Saturday night the clouds cleared briefly and allowed me a hurried chance at imaging Andromeda (M31).

[Update - Please see my updated post for much improved imaging & information]

For light that’s travelled for over 2 million years it still puts on quite a show.

You can also see two other Messier objects M32 & M110.

The picture was taken with a Canon 20D using a 100-400L lens whilst piggyback on the scope, settings as follows:

ISO3200 f5.6 400mm 5 x 2.5 minute frames, stacked.

Well this seems like a suitable first post. Over the last few days we’ve been hoping for clear skies tonight. Why? Because a lunar eclipse was due to occur. This is when the earth passes between the sun & the moon. They don’t happen at every full moon because the moon’s orbit is tilted and so a perfect alignment only occurs every couple of years or so.

This evening was looking like being a cloudy let down but we hoped for clearer conditions and they duly arrived.

10-27pm 3^rd March

Gradually the shadow of the earth crept up over the moon, as the picture above shows.

As time went on we were dogged by clouds but we all sat outside and persevered. 11-21pm was the time that totality was predicted for, but there’s some leeway with lunar eclipses and our patience was rewarded by the following beautiful clear view.

11-34pm 3^rd March

As you can see, the shadow cast by Earth creates a red hue over the whole moon, which is now very much darker than normal. Those of you with sharp eyes will have noticed two stars next to the moon. Both are in the constellation of Leo, the brighter one being cLeo Magnitude 5 @ 150 light-years and the other is 56Leo Magnitude 5.93 @ 325 light-years.

As with all things, time marches on and as the eclipse passes, the earth’s shadow drifts off the moon, as shown below:

12-50am 4^th March

And so an evening of fun came to a close. I think Tamsin will need a sleep in tomorrow morning J