After a long break in image processing, I'm taking advantage of this quarantine to dust off my images from my trip to Namibia.
I almost forgot I still had this one, already half processed, so it didn't take me too long to finish and publish it.
One of the most beautiful objects of the southern hemisphere: Omega Centauri
Omega Centauri
Just a quick snap done with a small 60mm telescope and my Canon EOS 80D during April's 2020 conjunction between the bright planet and the Pleiades.
Venus and the Seven Sisters
This is a relatively rare encounter, occuring only every 8 years, always in April.
The nebulosity around the Pleiades is completely outshined by Venus, the brightest object in the sky except for the Sun and the Moon.
I had a Saturday stroll in Gunnesbury Triangle. It's a tiny natural reserve, very close to my place.
I didn't get lots of sightings this time (probably need to go much earlier in the morning, or later on in the evening, when birds are more active), but I caught this little fluffy robin singing and taking a bath in a pond.
A few weeks ago I spent a few hours at the London Wetland Center.
It's a wonderful place just in the middle of London, where you can relax and enjoy the company of lots of wildlife creatures.
I got to see the cormorants assembling for migration, lots of ducks and gooses, and I even spotted a gull feeding his chick.
Here's my photogallery:
This is the third processed image from my trip to Namibia, probably the best one of the entire set, since it has the most data: almost three half nights of "gross time", but barely 4 hours after discarding bad frames.
Lagoon and Trifida nebulae
To the right, you can see the big and gorgeous Lagoon nebula. On the left side, the much smaller, but still nice and interesting (and more coloured) Trifid Nebula.
They're both also known respectively as M 8 and M 20, from the Messier catalogue.
Technical data:
Camera: ASI183MM
Mount: Star Adventurer (no autoguiding).
Telescope: TS Apo 60mm F/5.5 with 0.79x focal reducer (focal length: 265mm).
Filters: Astronomik LRGB Typ IIc
Shooting software: AstroPhoto Plus
Processing: Pixinsight
More details and...
Another update from my trip to Namibia. Here's a second processed image, the Tarantula Nebula, this time inside the Large Magellanic Cloud.
Tarantula Nebula
This is a star forming region, very similar to the famous Orion Nebula that we can see from our latitudes, only this is way bigger. If the Tarantula Nebula was as close to us as the Orion Nebula it would even cast a visible shadow.
Technical data:
Camera: ASI183MM
Mount: Star Adventurer (no autoguiding).
Telescope: TS Apo 60mm F/5.5 with 0.79x focal reducer (focal length: 265mm).
Filters: Astronomik LRGB Typ IIc
Shooting software: AstroPhoto Plus
Processing: Pixinsight
More details and full resolution image on the Astrobin page
After long planning I finally went to Namibia, under one of the darkest sky on the planet, with the main intent of a fully astronomical holiday. The trip was exausting, and I've barely started processing images. Here's a first image:
Small Magellanic Cloud
It's a zoomed detail of the Small Magellanic cloud, one of the two dwarf companion galaxies of our Milky Way.
Technical data:
Camera: ASI183MM
Mount: Star Adventurer (no autoguiding).
Telescope: TS Apo 60mm F/5.5 with 0.79x focal reducer (focal length: 265mm).
Filters: Astronomik LRGB Typ IIc
Shooting software: AstroPhoto Plus
Processing: Pixinsight
More details and full resolution image on the Astrobin page
As spring seems to have fully arrived in London, our garden looks quite full of life.
I spent some time this afternoon taking snaps and a few videos of the local parrots. In the morning they come in flocks of 10 or 20, while in late afternoon there's usually 2 or 3 at time.
During the evening, our usual male and female foxes came visiting, quite unusually at the same time, so I took the chance to make a few pictures of them together
"Hunting" for deers pictures, but with a few extras, on a cloudy day in Richmond Park. Also proved as a good test for my new camera, a Canon EOS 80D,
Since I've never blogged about this project, there's quite a lot to catch up, so I'm gonna make a first summary with all (or a good part of) the content I've captured so far.
Let's start by videos: here's a youtube playlist with all the videos captured so far
Open in Youtube
The playlist is ordered starting from the most recent going backwards in time, so the first videos are actually the last.
In addition to the equipment described in the previous post I occasionally am also able to take zoomed pictures with my DSLR cameras, a Canon EOS 700D at first, an EOS 80D more recently, and a Sigma 150-600 zoom lens.
These are the best albums so far
First encounter
A few pictures taken before I started feeding them (back in January 2018), with an old telelens. The quality is pretty bad, actually, but I put it here anyway, as it's a nice memory.
