Author: WebMistress

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Thursday, 2019-04-18 was an informal observing evening and whilst not ideal with an almost full Moon, we had lots of telescopes out and other members learning how to use the Peter Hindle Telescope.

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In April 2019 Mars was close to M45 (the Pleiades) and NGC 1499 and this coincided with the Kelling Heath Star Party. Unfortunately at this time of year Taurus is very low, setting in the late evening making this a difficult object to image, my attempts to stack and then process with Deep Sky Stacker were hopeless, so I turned to Astro Pixel Processor (using a 30 day free trial) which has a very easy to use light pollution killer, this allowed me to remove the gradient that resulted from the very low elevation and trees that crept into the field.

Total exposure is 84 minutes, from 30s subs. Tracking was achieved with an iOptron Star tracker, camera was a Canon 600D with a full spectrum mod and a CLSCCD clip-in filter.

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4 Members and 2 ex-Members travelled to the Kelling Heath Star Party, this star party has notoriously poor weather, but on this occasion we were blessed with reasonable views on Wednesday night and clear skies from dusk 'till dawn on Thursday Night, Friday Morning.

Many, many objects were observed with Keith's 10" Dobsonian and Simon's 12" Truss Dobsonian, Julian and another Simon both allowed us to view objects with their 20" Dob's. 

Apparently the food was epic...

Auriga

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Camp Site

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Mist on Sunday

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13 Members made the annual pilgrimage to Sparsholt College for the BAA Winchester Weekend.

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A DSLR, ideally one that has been modded to remove the filters is an accessible way to begin imaging, and I have successfully imaged using a 'full spectrum mod' Canon 600D for many years.

Unfortunately these cameras are not cooled and the sensor temperature (measured by the camera) runs about 15 degrees above the ambient air temperature. You can find cooled DSLR's but these are very expensive, however by simply putting the DSLR into a box and cooling the box using a peltier cooler it is possible to cool the DSLR without any modification to the camera, delivering measurable improvements in noise. 

Parts:

All parts are readily available on Amazon

• Water proof electrical case
• Expanding builders foam
• Peltier cooler

The approach is not unique, my cooler box was based on the design here

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Messier 46 also known as NGC2437 is an open cluster discovered in 1771 by Charles Messier. it is a very bright and very rich open cluster of about 500 stars and as a bonus the planetary nebula NGC 2438 appears to lie within the cluster near its northern edge, but in reality it is most likely unrelated.

If you are looking at M46 why not also have a look at M47.which is only about a degree west of M46, so the two fit well in a binocular or wide-angle telescope field.

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Images by Neil Webster

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Other Images
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All images are copyright. Permission must be sought to from the image owner to the use of any of these images.

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