Stars like dust

The Double Cluster and Andromeda widefield: Canon 400d DSLR and EOS lens at f=18mm.

The Andromeda Galaxy flying high above the stars and dust of the Milky Way taken with my Canon 400d DSLR with an EOS lens at f=18mm. Mr Canon makes remarkably fine cameras and lenses!

The twenty or so 30 second exposures were stacked using DeepSky Stacker and finished using Fits Work, Asta La Vista Green and APS with Neil Carboni's actions. Thanks to Olly Penrose for his helpful tips on image processing.

The pristine dark skies of the Haute Alpes-Provence certainly meet all the astrophotographer's needs.

Provence Panorama

Orion rising in the East: tripod mounted Canon 400d DSLR and EOS lens at 18mm

3.00am on a hillside in the Haute Alpes with my only company a wild boar grunting in the hedgerow behind the camera. What a wonderful night in a brilliant location!

From Orion to Cassiopeia: panorama created using Microsoft ICE

Messier 1: The Crab Nebula

The Crab Nebula, M1 or NGC 1952, in the constellation Taurus.  My image, data from the Bradford Robotic Telescope.

I saw the Crab Nebula through a telescope for the first time about a week ago whilst Toot and I were staying with Olly Penrice at Les Granges in the Haute-Alpes.  I was so pleased to see this very faint supernova remnant. The following day I programmed the Bradford Robotic Telescope to photograph it!

The supernova which created 'The Crab' is believed to have occurred in AD 1054, there are records from the the Far East and the Middle East of  the appearance of a bright star in that year.  At maximum the supernova would have been brighter than any night sky object other than the Moon.

In visible light, the Crab Nebula consists of a broadly oval-shaped mass of filaments, about 6 arcminutes long and 4 arcminutes wide (by comparison, the full moon is 30 arcminutes across) surrounding a diffuse blue central region. In three dimensions, the nebula is thought to be shaped like a prolate spheroid (a rugby ball). The filaments are the remnants of the progenitor star's atmosphere, and consist largely of ionised helium and hydrogen, along with carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, iron, neon and sulfur. The filaments' temperatures are typically between 11,000 and 18,000 K, and their densities are about 1,300 particles per cm^3.

In 1968 a pulsar, a fast spinning neutron star, was found within the nebula.  At the centre of the Crab Nebula are two faint stars, one of which is the star responsible for the existence of the nebula. It was identified as such in 1942, when Rudolf Minkowski found that its optical spectrum was extremely unusual. The region around the star was found to be a strong source of radio waves in 1949 and X-rays in 1963 and was identified as one of the brightest objects in the sky in gamma rays in 1967. Then, in 1968, the star was found to be emitting its radiation in rapid pulses, becoming one of the first pulsars to be discovered.

The Crab Nebula in a wider field and much like the view throgh Olly's ' big Dob' telescope

 Credits: The Bradford Robotic Telescope and Wikipedia

The Milky Way from Cassiopeia to Perseus

The Milky Way roughly centred on the Double cluster last night with my tripod mounted Canon 400d DSLR with an EOS lens at f=18mm. (30x30 sec lights and 10 darks taken at ISO 1600. stacked using DeepSkyStacker)

Last night the sky in Provence was particularly transparent. The Double Cluster in Perseus was so bright that it was clearly visible to the naked eye. Far away an electrical storm flickered on the horizon and as I stood waiting for the shutter on my camera to close, out the corner of my eye, I witnessed the silent fall of a bright green meteor. Thank you Toot for a wonderful holiday under the stars!

The Milky Way en Provence

The Milky Way from Etoile St Cyrice, Haute Alpes

The weather improved and the stars came out and oh there are so many!  The above image was taken with my Canon 400d DSLR camera with an EOS lens at f =18mm.  The constellation Sagittarius, in the shape of a 'teapot,' can be seen centre-left just above the horizon.  The Milky Way is quite bright and broad at this point. The massive blackhole at the centre of our spiral galaxy is just above and to the right of Sagittarius. You can clearly see the central bulge of the Milky Way galaxy. How good is that!

I enjoyed the stars so much, I decided to paint the scene in astronomical twilight! Thanks Olly and Monique for making this possible.

View from the front door of Les Granges (mixed media)

Just after sunset and before the sky became dark

The Salamander at the door.

A Salamander just outside the front door

Having never seen a salamander in the wild, we were very impressed to find one just outside.  Salamanders have permeable skin and love damp environments. We saw this little fellow the morning after a fierce electrical storm and a biblical downpour. 

The salamander is unique amongst vertebrates in being able to regenerate lost limbs.  Eveyone loves an amphibian!