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Astrophotography with a remote telescope

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Open University’s COAST telescope on Teneriffe

The best location for an astronomical telescope is on the top of a mountain. Remote, cold and a pain to get to. But with an internet connection – you can “work from home”.

During the summer, I signed up for a free Open University course called Astronomy with an online Telescope. With it you get access to a telescope on mount Tiede on the Island of Tenerife for 6 months.

This professional grade telescope COAST (COmpletely Autonomous Survey Telescope) consists of a 17 inch f/6.8 Corrected Dall-Kirkham Astrograph telescope (a PlaneWave CDK17), is equipped with an FLI ProLine KAF-0900 CCD camera, broadband and narrow-band filters, also mounted on a GM4000. You pick which objects you want to image and select filters. A few days later, you receive an email that the image is ready for download.

The OU course is free and explains how to use the telescope as well as the many aspects of basic astronomy. The course is online, free and available right now. Some of my images are below. Click for a larger version.

M16 Eagle Nebula
14072022 at 222203UTC
M8 Lagoon Nebula
14052022 at 030453UTC
NGC6992
16102022 at 23156UTC
M31 Andromeda Galaxy
21102022 at 235612UTC
M20 Triffid Nebula
10052022 at 0241UTC
M42 Orion Nebula
21092022 at 034742UTC
NGC6946
23052022 at 231231 UTC
M45 Pleiades
30102022 at215101 UTC
IC5146
18062022 at 014050 UTC
M13 Hercules Cluster
20052022 at 205216 UTC
M57 Ring Nebula
16052022 at 001750 UTC
M51 Whirlpool Galaxy
10052022 at 2235 UTC

Episode 100 Sandra Benitez Herrera – ESA Education Outreach

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Astrophysicist Sandra Benitez-Herrera  talks about the opportunities for teachers and students made available by the European Space Agency‘s CESAR (Cooperation through Education in Science and Astronomy Research) program. This episode was recorded in Athens in July during Cospar 2022.

If you are a student or a teacher in Europe or beyond, Sandra explains how you make use of CESAR’s resources – optical, solar and radio telescopes, online seminars, face-to-face training and an enormous quantity of space data from ESA and other space agencies. All in one place and with no charge. She starts with an explanation of what CESAR is – in audio and Youtube video below.

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Images and video from the partial Solar Eclipse 20 March 2015

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Some images and short videos of the eclipse recorded from northwest England during a mostly cloudy morning of 20th March 2015. I used a video camera piggy-backed on my driven Vixen 102mm telescope along with a Cannon 550D at the prime focus for a few stills.  A mylar filter was used most of the time on both the scope and video camera but occasionally removed because the attenuation provided by the clouds was sufficient. Although mostly cloudy throughout the eclipse there were several intervals when the sun was not completely obscured and is when these recordings were made.

The video was shot using a Panasonic HDC HS900 camera and the first 4 still images are from that camera too. Click on any image to open gallery view.

Partial Solar Eclipse 20 Mar 2015  – still images from video using Panasonic HDC HS900

 If you are intrigued by the birds in the images above. Here are the video clips from which they came at one tenth normal speed.

Partial Solar Eclipse 20 March 2015 – Vixen 102mm and a Cannon 550D at prime focus.

 

This 3 minute video is a collection of intervals when cloud cover did not completely obscure the sun during the couple of hours of the solar eclipse. It has been speeded up twenty times normal speed.

Episode 65: ISRO – The early years

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URRoa
Prof. UR Rao

The Indian Space Research Organisation formally came in to being in 1972. By then, India had been developing its space program for almost a decade. The first launch to space from Indian soil was a two stage Nike-Apache rocket supplied by USA with a  sodium  payload from France. The rocket delivered a vertical trail of sodium vapour in space above the twilight sky of the south eastern coast of Kerala on 21st November 1963.

In this episode, professor UR Rao talks about his rich and diverse career. Professor Rao completed his Phd under Dr Vikram Sarabhai, then went on to work for NASA at MIT and in Texas exploring the Solar System with instruments on NASA’s Pioneer and Explorer spacecraft. He returned to India at Sarabhai’s request and after heading up the Physical Research Laboratory, in 1984 became the chairman of the Indian Space Research organisation. He served in that role until 1994.

During his 81 years, he has participated in many significant areas in space and science exploration.  Several key individuals associated with space and science research including CV Raman, Robert Millikan, Ed Stone, Arthur Clark,  James Van Allen , Abdus Salam and Vikram Sarabhai were individual he knew personally and some were colleagues.

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