This site was originally my PhotoBlog, but I have now changed it to be my astronomy website. It’s called ForthImage as I originally did a lot of my photography around the River Forth, the river on which the city of Edinburgh stands. It’s a place where I can post my images purely for the fun of it! Feel free to: ahhhhh with delight (unlikely), snigger with derision (likely), or offer (de-)constructive criticism (welcome).
See dark matter masquerading as dust on my camera sensor; marvel at the weird and other-worldly effects of my feeble attempts at image processing; hoot with laughter at gravity winning yet again as I drop an expensive eyepiece on the observatory floor; empathise with the pain of the verbal tongue-lashing my wife gives me for leaving yet another piece of scrap telescope lying around the house; yell with vitriolic rage at the ugly orange glow of the encroaching streetlights; share in the depressing gloom of total cloud cover and the continuous rain we have come to “know and love” in this country; enjoy the wonders of the universe. It’s an amazing place!
After 3 roll-off roof observatories (2 were blow-off roof) I now have a driven Pulsar dome sitting on my homemade wooden walls, sitting on a base that was originally a WWII air raid shelter (we think), with a homemade concrete-filled pier with brake-disc pier top.
Equipment
Yes I’ve gathered up quite a bit of junk over the years. Never seem to get rid of any…
EQ6-R PRO goto mount / EQMOD software control- Orion Optics (UK) 250mm f4.8 Newtonian, upgraded Baader Diamond Steeltrack focuser (imaging scope)
- Altair Astro RC8 200mm f8 Ritchey-Chretien (imaging scope) – hard work and unforgiving!
- Skywatcher Explorer 200P – 8″ f5 Newtonian (imaging scope) – great all rounder – on loan to Nigel
- SkyMax 180 Pro 7″ Maksutov-Cassegrain (lunar / planetary) – great but unforgiving of bad seeing
- Celestron C80ED on AZ GTi – grab-and-go telescope now
- Skywatcher 70mm f/7.1 achromatic refractor (Mercury 705 – used as guidescope)
- Meade ETX 90RA, unused
- 10″ f5.1 Newtonian (old Hinds ‘A’ mirrors, not used at the moment as it needs re-aluminzed)
- QHY168c colour CMOS camera incoming
- ZWO ASI290MC (lunar/solar/planetary/guiding)
- ATIK 460EX mono, SX Filterwheel, Baader LRGB, Ha, OIII, SI, Rc filters
Canon EOS 350D DSLR – modded, fitted with Baader filter (unused)- Canon EOS 600D DSLR – screen intermittent fault
- Baader Multi-Purpose Coma Corrector (MPCC)
- Brightstar off-axis guider (rarely use it!)
- IDAS P2 LPR filter
- Astronomik EOS clip CLS filter (on loan to Mike)
- Skywatcher 2″ light pollution filter
- “Old” Lumicon 2″ Deep Sky filter
- Imaging Source DBK 21AU618.as (guider and lunar/planetary unused)
- ADM dual saddle side-by-side mount
Gemini dual mount bar- Some eyepieces and barlows
- Many, many tubes, connectors, adapters, cables and bits of astro-junk…
Software
- Cartes du Ciel (planetarium)
- EQMOD/EQASCOM (telescope control)
- APT (image capture)
- PHD2 (autoguiding)
- Registax
- Astro Pixel Processor
- Nebulosity (stacking and initial processing)
- SiriL
- Adobe Photoshop CC (processing)
- Adobe Lightroom CC (final processing)
- Noel’s Actions
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