Equipments:
- Refractor PrimaLuce Airy ED90
- Mount Skywatcher HEQ5 Pro Synscan
- CCD Atik Titan
- XP 90° 31,8mm dielectric mirror diagonal
Location: Seoul, South Korea
Open Cluster Cr405 (NGC6823)
Planetary Nebula M27 (NGC6853)
Atik Titan – Gain and Read Noise Analysis
This is an analysis of gain and read noise of the CCD Atik Titan.
I used as samples, two bias frame and two photos of M27 taken with 60 seconds of exposure, even though it should be done with flat frames, as said in my documentation, probably because they have a better signal to noise ratio.
Anyway the result are in line with the official website specification so I am more than satisfied.
Here you can download the sample images I used.
| STD | Mean Pixel | Atik Titan Specification | |||
| Bias1 | 21,04 | 1235,00 | |||
| Bias2 | 20,95 | 1235,00 | FWC (e-) | 22500,00 | |
| Flat1 | 468,87 | 11883,83 | ADC (bit) | 16,00 | |
| Flat2 | 492,62 | 11798,47 | Readout Noise (e-) | 7,00 | |
| FWC (e-/ADU) | 2,91 | ||||
| Mean (Bias1 + Bias2) | 2470,00 | ||||
| Mean (Flat1 + Flat2) | 23682,30 | ||||
| STD (flat1 – flat2) | 419,72 | ||||
| STD (bias1 – bias2) | 29,51 | ||||
| Gain (ADU) | 0,12 | ||||
| Gain (e-/ADU) | 0,35 | Gain Factor (e-/ADU) | 0,34 | ||
| Read Noise | 2,53 | Readout Noise (ADU) | 2,40 |
Star Field in Ophiuchus July, 2009 New Processing
2012 DA14 – tracking with binocular
Really beautiful day was on February 15th, 2013.
I got up at 3 am and with my binocular 20×80 and tripod I went to a schoolyard near my home. I got ready for the event until 4 am, when finally I caught the little dot.
I started with star hopping from Minkar, Epsilon Corvi, and I went down until Xi Hydrae, where at 4 am I would have seen the asteroid.
The problem was that the altitude was really low, just 15 degree and a high building would have screwed up my day, so I decided to go up a little more until the building would not have been a problem.
It wasn’t really easy because the seen in Seoul, South Korea, is REALLY BAD! anyway, no moon, sky really clear from clouds, so was kind of perfect day. So I was able to put my view between Gamma and Beta Crateris, and at 4 hour and 18 minutes I saw this little dot of mag. +7.9 running really fast on the field of my binocular.
Really Exciting! I followed the asteroid for an hour, and was really a beautiful night. At around 4:40 it passed by a beautiful and rich field of stars between Crater, Virgo, Leo and Sextans constellation, and at 5 o’clock it passed by a rich field of faint NGC galaxies that unfortunately I was unable to see.
For the accurate position of the asteroid I used SkySafari Plus on my Ipod, where I was able to see in real time the exact position with a small error in Right Ascension but totally permissible.
However I wasn’t able to use my pc software, Cartes Du Ciel, to track the path of the asteroid, where on the contrary the ephemerides were totally wrong.
UCAC4 482-078944 – high proper motion
The first image is from the US Naval Observatory’s archive, the second is a composition of three images of 20 second each, with a Newton Ziel Galazy2 8′ with SBIG ST-247 camera at f/5.
The star has a proper motion in RA of -1.15″ per year, really fast!
Go to VizieR reference page
Go to Simbad reference page
Download source
This research has made use of the USNOFS Image and Catalogue Archive
operated by the United States Naval Observatory, Flagstaff Station
(http://www.nofs.navy.mil/data/fchpix/).
Messier 10 – 22 July, 2009, Rome
Messier 10 in Ophiuchus, Rome, Italy, 22 July 2009.
Details: Composition of 30 images ( 10 images for each channel RGB ). Every image has an exposure of 20 second at f/5, with telescope Newton Ziel Galaxy2 8′ on Skywatcher HEQ5 Syscan with SBIG ST-237 CCD camera.
RGB:
pseudo color:
Messier 12 – 22 July, 2009, Rome
Details: Composition of 30 images, 10R/10B/10G, exposure of 20s for each image, f/5, focal 1M. Newton Ziel Galaxy2 8′ on mount HEQ5 Syscan with camera SBIG ST-237.
Processed image:
In pseudo color:
Original fit image:
Messier 14 on 22 July, 2009, Rome
Details: Sum of 10 images for each channel RGB with 20s for each image, f/5, focal 1M. Newton Ziel Galaxy2 8′ on HEQ5 Syscan with camera Sbig ST-236.
Original fit file:
Messier 5 – 22 July, 2009
It past long time since I took these photos but these days I can’t use my telescope and I have just a binocular that I use sometime when it doesn’t rain or snow or is not too cold, so I decided to review some of my work and process some pictures I missed.
Details: Newton Ziel Galaxy2 8′ on Skywatcher HEQ5 Syscan with camera SBIG ST-237. I took 49 images for luminance, and 20 images for each channels RGB. Every image has exposure of 20 sec at f/5, focal 1M. Shooted in Rome, on 20 and 22 July, 2009.
Luminance (no filters applied):
LRGB (no filters applied):
Luminance processed on Maxim DL with digital development filter
Original fit files:
Osservazione del 17 Novembre 2012
Primi test osservativi con binocolo Garrett 20×80 WP-CF Mk II
Oggi finalmente sono riuscito ad utilizzare il binocolo con qualche soddisfazione.
Prima di tutto ho diaframmato il binocolo a 20x60mm, per via del cielo troppo chiaro ho voluto provare a diaframmarlo. Il treppiedi lo ritengo appena sufficiente per lo strumento, troppe vibrazioni con un vento leggero, mentre la testa del treppiedi a tre assi e’ assolutamente inutilizzabile, acquistero’ una testa fluida Manfrotto a breve.
Luogo osservativo: campo da calcetto in una scuola elementare a Seoul.
Situazione cielo: falce di luna ben definita senza nessun alone intorno, stelle ben definite e turbolenza atmosferica minima; non posso essere piu’ preciso.
Gli oggetti che ho puntato sono stati i seguenti:
– Giove, senza nessun alone intorno ma con leggera aberrazione cromatica lungo il bordo, con Europa a 5 arcosecondi dalla superficie di Giove alle 12:40 UT ( sempre se Ciel e’ attendibile ), splittato con facilita’; osservando sul bordo dell’oculare (con Giove centrato nel campo ), sono riuscito ad intravedere la superficie a fasce, riducendo la luminosita’ del pianeta, seppur senza soddisfazione.
– M45, nebulosa assente ma sempre molto bella da vedere.
– M36, risolte 6/7 stelle.
– Doppio ammasso, molto bello anche in condizioni di inquinamento luminoso pietose, risolto fino a magnitudine 9.7 circa.
– Mel 20, Alpha Perseo, ammasso molto bello e ricco di stelle.
– Stock 2, …niente da fare.
– M31, …mi sono quasi rotto il collo senza nessun risultato, allo zenit non e’ fattibile.
– M38 e M37, non sono riuscito a vedere una sola stella dei due ammassi.
– Tr 2 nel Perseo, risolte solo 5 componenti ( stelle di magnitudine 10 assenti )
Le stelle risultano puntiformi al centro del campo ma spostandosi verso il bordo si deformano e vanno fuori fuoco.
Per quanto riguarda la collimazione la ritengo piu’ che buona; le pupille d’uscita, dopo averle osservate diverse volte, mi sono sembrate perfettamente circolari, anche se come gia’ detto noto una leggera convergenza.
