Author Archives: james

Modded PST fitted to a dovetail

Someone suggested to me that Munsen rings might be a good way to fix my PST to a dovetail. As they looked far more straightforward than having to turn some fittings from solid aluminium I thought I’d give them a … Continue reading

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Another accidental ISS

It seems as though sometimes you just can’t keep these people out of your images…

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Another crack at M3 and M5

The same details as my previous attempt the day before, but I think these ones are a little better. Focus is sharper, I think, and the colours have come through better.

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Widefield Bootes and Hercules

The night preceeding my M3 and M5 efforts I managed a couple of widefield images of the constellations Bootes and Hercules using just the 450D with the stock 18-55mm lens focused at around 25mm focal length according to the EXIF … Continue reading

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Another couple of 127 Mak Messier objects

Hot on the heels of my “success” with M13, I decided to have a try at M3 and M5. I suffered the same problems with unusable subs for exactly the same reasons: it’s really pushing the mount too hard to … Continue reading

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Coronado PST “Stage 0.5” mod

A short while ago I purchased a slightly damaged PST for solar Ha viewing. Not wishing to stump up the price of a Tal 100RS just yet, but wanting to make life somewhat easier for imaging and not being entirely … Continue reading

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A swarm in May is worth a bale of hay…

A swarm in June is worth a silver spoon. So the saying goes. This was my first of the year, on 31st May. I reckon that counts as June 🙂 It was a fairly large swarm, too. Now safely tucked … Continue reading

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DSO Imaging with a 127 Mak

It’s often said that slow focal ratio telescopes are unsuitable for DSO imaging and in the general case I’d probably agree. However, having seen a few other imaging attempts with a 127 Mak I thought it might be interesting to … Continue reading

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It’s been a busy summer…

And I’ve had little time to write up what I’ve been doing, so now the autumn is well under way I shall be catching up with details of the last three or four months…

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One Swallow does not a summer make…

But lots of them is really quite impressive. Especially when you can get up close. Just went out to feed some scraps to the chickens with my daughter and saw a number of swallows tearing around the trees in the … Continue reading

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