Derby and District Astronomical Society

The Moon - 7 days old

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The following image represents 'first light' for Chris Newsome's new Celestron C8-NGT telescope. It is a stack of around 200 frames taken with a Meade LPI camera, stacked in Registax and processed in CS2 and taken on 5th May 2006. Chris comments: "The C8-NGT is an 8-inch Newtonian on a CG5 (ASGT) mount. I have piggybacked my Skywatcher 80T on the back as a guidescope and as a result the counterbalance arm requires 29lb of weights (the normal weight of the whole setup without the 80T is 67lbs and so the guiding setup is incredibly heavy - but very steady). The ASGT mount seems to be very accurate in it's GOTO facility and when it is tracking the sky, it does so effortlessly and smoothly (even with the extra weight). But as usual the telescope doubles as a cloud making machine and I have only been able to use it once since it arrived.".

Chris Newsome took the following image of the first quarter Moon on the 5th April 2006. He used a Meade LPI camera with a driven Celestron C6-N telescope. The image is a combination of 4 frames (obtained from a collection of 300) stitched together in CS2. The original stacking was carried out in Registax and the four main images were matched for brightness, contrast and levels prior to stitching together.

Chris Newsome captured the following sequence of images on the 13th July 2005 using his Meade ETX 105 and LPI camera. To see these images with features named click here.

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