Dunfermline Astronomical Society

My first ever image of Sunspots thanks to Thousand Oaks Solar filter purchased from Mark (scoobywizz- This guy is a first class seller by the way) on Astrobuysell.

I used my LX200 10" with an Orion No 58 Green Filter and Mintron MTV-126HC camera with an Antares f6.3 focal reducer also from Mark :)

I captured 800 frames and stacked in registax with a little levels adjustment in Adobe Photoshop.

Here is a nice detailed image of Theophilus (top), Cyrillus and Catharina. See the detail inside the craters those shadows are amazing! To the right is the Mare Nectaris and here you can see the difference in shading of the Mare.


To give you some idea of the scale of things, Theophilus is about 65 Miles (110km) across and the ramparts to the east rise to 18,000 ft.

To the left the Rupes Altai are in deep shadow but its  long snake-like structure is unmistakeable as the sunlight reflects off the top of the wall.

Taken with Mintron 12V6HC-EX and LX200 10" and polarizing filter. This is a single frame in snapshot mode ( I take several of these in rapid succession and choose the one that looks the sharpest!)

Taken on 19th April 2010 at 20:30

Geoff

Nice opportunity to take Venus and a striking crescent Moon very low on the horizon.

Camera Model Name Canon EOS 300D DIGITAL
Shooting Date/Time 04/15/10 20:17:37
Shooting Mode Manual 70-210 zoom
Tv(Shutter Speed) Metering Mode
Center-weighted averaging
ISO Speed  200

M64 Black Eye Galaxy

I was very happy to be able to image this at last even though fairly low down and light pollution was a problem.

Discovered 1779 by Edward Pigott. Messier 64 (M64, NGC 4826) is the famous Black Eye galaxy, in Coama Berenices ( Berenices' Comb) Also called the "Sleeping Beauty galaxy." The conspicuous dark structure is a prominent dust feature obscuring the stars behind.