Astrophotography

Introduction I never thought that I would be starting an article containing the statement “moving from Linux to Windows”, but this is exactly what will be happening with my main imaging scope set up in a few days. For those who don’t know anything about me, I have spent decades… (hmm, yes it is now measurable in decades!) using Linux based operating systems - since the early Red Hat days of the late 1990’s, and being comfortable with that environment, it has always been the first port of call for any home project, such as a telescope mounted observation control platform. ...

So here begins the June 2020 roundup. This month is a bit of a random collection of the moon, satellite passes, star trails and an inner Solar system planetary conjunction! ...

Introduction As well as the telescope pier I like to have a DSLR (an astro-modified Canon EOS 450D) on a Skywatcher Star Adventurer mount around in the garden. It makes for a nice little mobile arrangement that can be set up at a moment’s notice. Usually the set up consists of the camera, a lens warmer, power for the mount and an intervalometer for controlling the timing of pictures being captured. Having really enjoyed setting up a Raspberry Pi 4 running KStars, EKOS and INDI for the pier based telescope I thought that putting a ‘one stop’ solution together, able to do the same as the above plus a few extras, for the DSLR would be a great little side project. ...

It has been a strange couple of months, what with the current Coronavirus epidemic raging around us, but I have managed to capture a few astronomical events from the garden in any case. So here begins the April 2020 roundup. ...