@schurem. After the sucess of our woodstore seedum roof (your design) we are now looking at a well house. We have a deep well in the front garden covered by a large stone slab. Our builder who raised the front walls height by adding three wooden slats agread to do something similer for a well. (A certain large pup could stand on his back paws, lean over and lick the faces of passers by)
I love that idea. Mayhaps put a slight downward slant on the roof so excess water can run off. You might also make a slightly heavier construction allowing for a grass/mixed flowers covered roof.
I’m really envious of you guys, I used to love building my own bikes when I was a keen cyclist. After a very nasty bike-meets-car- door accident I never did it properly again.
I bought one in 1997 and my Mrs has only just messed it up enough to go to the scrap heap. She does that - been through half a dozen bikes in 10 years. I knew it was a big risk letting her use mine, but also knew I would never get on it again, so whatever…
May i ask what kind of telescope was used to capture that photo? I have a basic 900/130mm Newtonian, and I can really appreciate your achievement. Astro photography is not for faint of heart.
The telescope I used is a little 6 inch AstroTech RC. It is a great scope although I would really like to get the 10inch version. The mount is a Celestron CGEM DX.
Do you use filters for such vivid colours or post processing?
My experience with Orion nebula and any other nebulae for that matter is that they mostly look like grey stains when directly observed through the telescope. No colours at all.
For the images I took over the last couple of nights, I just stacked using AstroFX, which came bundled with my Celestron Nightscape camera. The camera was discontinued awhile ago now I had to jump through some hoops to get it working with my new laptop. The same for AstroFX, but it does work.
The Celestron Nightscape is a color CCD camera, so no filters required. You get the very best results with a monochrome camera with filters, but the downside is that you have to take multiple sets of images… Red, Green, Blue and Luminance. The all color cameras have a ‘bayer matrix’ over the sensor which gives us an RGB image but the penalty you pay is that it generally means the sensor is less sensitive. Also, with a color camera, you can’t use more exotic filters like Hydrogen Alpha, O3, which can make nebulae really stand out.
One of the things I like about astro-imaging vs visual observing is that you can see details with a small scope that you could never discern with the Mk1 Eyeball, including color.
Heard a couple of mockingbirds loosing their marbles over something, went outside and this guy was an unwelcome visitor hanging around their streetcorner (I was certainly happy to see him though!)
Still struggling but I am gonna try not to be so hard on myself. Like I know logically I can’t hop into something and a month later have crazy amazing black chested buzzard eagle pictures flying out of the camera, but part of me wants to jump ahead a couple of years and just be better!
There’s also a fair bit of luck and volume involved I bet. Things beyond your control, such as the angle of the lighting or the pose of your subject aren’t matters of skill.
Of course there are ways to manufacture a bit of luck
