A Free Short Story that might help in the fight against light pollution and light trespass
Posted by sjwainwright | Filed under Uncategorized
I invite readers to download this PDF or epub file and send it to any publisher or individual. It may be published anywhere but may not be exclusive. If it is published elsewhere, please inform me of this.(Please email me: sjwainwright at btinternet dot com )
The aim of this short story is to get people who are not interested in astronomy or in the preservation of dark skies, to think about the way that they and others use light.
Read or download the PDF or epub file Here
Light trespass, light-pollution, light-waste affect us all directly or indirectly. This applies particularly to astronomers. Often the problems created for us are thoughtless or accidental. This short story is to get people to think about whether they are using light in a thoughtless or selfish way.
Please pass it on to others.
The SDC-435 astrovideography continues HERE
Thank you.
SDC-435 in LOW AGC mode with autoguided scopes
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Auto-guiding is essential in this mode because the image is more persistent and any movement shows as trailed stars.
These three images were obtained through an f/4.8, 10″ Newtonian. The camera was fitted with a very short nosepiece, a light-pollution filter and an 0.5 focal reduced Newtonian
- The Horsehead Nebula
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The Horsehead Nebula
The Flame Nebula
The Running Man reflection NebulaThese images were imaged with a similar setup but the scope was a 6", f/5 Newtonian
The Horsehead Nebula
The Flame Nebula
M31 The Andromeda Galaxy showing dust lanes
M42/3 The Orion Nebula
M97, The Owl Nebula
The Bubble nebula with a modified SDC-435 and a 6″, f/5, autoguided Newtonian
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The SDC-435 was fitted with a light pollution filter and placed at the prime focus of the 6″ Newtonian.
A 15min DVD VOB was recorded. Every 8th BMP was extracted from the VOB using VOB Frame Extractor. The images were dark frame corrected using a dark frame generated in Dark Frame Scaler. The images were stacked in Registax and saved as a 16bit TIFF file:
Caldwell 11
Autoguided M57 with a 6″, f/5 Newtonian and an SDC-435
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A 70mm F=700mm refractor mounted in guidescope rings was used as the guidescope:
Guidescope and cameras configuration
The scopes were mounted on a Synscan HEQ5 mount autoguided with a Shoestring USB Guide Port Adapter (GPUSB)
A DMK21AS camera was used as the guide camera set to 1.5s exposures PHD guiding was used as the autoguiding software
The modified Samsung SDC-435 video camera was the imaging camera set to 256 frames accumulation
Netbook running PHD guiding and the video monitor showing M57
The autoguiding software was run on a netbook. Here you can see the guide star at the intersection of the two lines on the computer screen and the ring nebula on the video monitor screen on the left.
Data were recorded to DVD for 15min (1 VOB file). The BMPs were extracted from the VOB using Dark Frame Scaler and were then stacked in Registax, being dark-frame corrected with a dark-frame scaled in Dark Frame Scaler.
Autoguided M57
The autoguiding allowed the whole field of view to be used in the final image as the edges were not lost due to drift.
The SDC-435 with a 10″ SCT, a 6″ Netwtonian and an 80mm refractor
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On October 11th I used the SDC-435 with three different scopes
The Dumbbell Nebula, M27 with an 11″ f/10 SCT with a 6.3 focal reducer
The SDC-435 was fitted with a light pollution filter
M27, the Dumbbell nebula
The Crab Nebula, M1 with a 6″ f/5 Newtonian
The SDC-435 was fitted with a light pollution filter
M1, the Crab nebula
The Orion Nebula, M42/43 with an 80mm f/5 refractor
The SDC-435 was fitted with a light pollution filter
M42/43, the Orion Nebula
Nebula and clusters with an f/5 6″ Newtonian and a Samsung SDC-435
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On Sept 29th the SDC-435 camera was fitted with a light pollution filter and placed at the prime (Newtonian) focus of an f/5, 6″ Newtonian:
M17 the Swan or Omega Nebula
M29 Open Cluster in Cygnus
M13, Globular Cluster in Hercules
Deep Sky with a SDC-435 and a 10″ f/4.8 Newtonian
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I used the SDC-435 with a 10″ f/4.8 Newtonian. Some objects were imaged at prime focus whilst some of them were imaged through a 0.5 focal reducer. A light pollution filter was used as always. There was a 1/2 Moon low in the sky:
The Eastern Veil nebula imaged with a focal reducer
The Crescent Nebula in Cygnus imaged with a focal reducer
The camera could ‘see’ these two nebulae in real time and was a useful observation tool.
M27, the Dumbbell Nebula
M57, the Ring Nebula in Lyra
M13, Globular Cluster in Hercules
M57 with a modified SDC-435 and a 6″ Newtonian
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I used the modified SDC-435 fitted with a light pollution filter at the prime focus of an f/5, 150mm Newtonian. The AGC was set this time to LOW :
M57
M57, the Ring Nebula
M13 with a modified SDC-435 and a 6″ Newtonian
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On Sept 30 I used the modified SDC-435 fitted with a light pollution filter at the prime focus of an f/5 150mm Newtonian. The AGC was set this time to LOW which produced less saturation and lower chrominance noise in particular:
M13
M13
There was a bright Moon in the sky but a pleasing result was obtained
M82 with the modified Samsung SDC-435 and an 11″ SCT
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The camera was fitted with a light pollution filter and the scope with a 6.3 focal reducer. DVD was captured in high quality and 244 useful frames were extracted with VOB Frame Extractor. The frames were stacked in Registax using a dark-frame scaled correctly using Dark Frame Scaler:
M82 The cigar galaxy
