22-December-2003
(86kb)

By Martin Mobberley, taken on Dec 18. using Celestron 14 @ f7.7 and ST-9XE, on Paramount ME.  10x60s exposures.
Note, due to Christmas Holidays, the next Picture of the Week will appear on the 5th January 2004. 
A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all our viewers.

15-December-2003
(87kb)

By Kevin Smith, taken using Takahashi FS128, True Technology Filter Wheel, and ST-10E, on Paramount ME. 
LRGB exposures: L 20 x 3min, R 8 x 3min, G 6 x 3min, B 10 x 3min. 
Captured with CCDsoft, aligned/combined in Maxim DL, and final processing in Photoshop.

08-December-2003
(47kb)

This picture by James Weightman, Cirencester, Gloucestershire is an average of 4 unguided(!) 4 second exposures taken with a Canon 300D SLR digital camera set at ISO 1600, with Canon 85mm f/1.2L lens. Taken on 2003/10/30 ~03:00UT.
Apart from stacking and cropping of original TIF (from RAW) images and conversion to JPG, no other digital manipulation was performed.

01-December-2003
(53kb)

Taken by Damian Peach, Loudwater, Buckinghamshire, UK, using an 11" (28 cm) Celestron SCT @ f/31.4. and Philips ToUcam Pro Webcam. Seeing was rather poor, but the small dark SSTB spot is prominent, and the GRS is just visible.
Integrated Light: ~350 x 0.04 secs
Seeing generally poor (Pickering 2-4) with fast seeing. Transparency variable with frequent low clouds (cl-5.5mag.) No wind. Heavy dew/ice.
Eq Diam=35.5" Altitude= 43 degs.

24-November-2003
(96kb)

17-November-2003
(26kb)

10-November-2003
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3-November-2003
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Imaged on the 20/9/03 near Ben Lawers, Scotland by Russell Cockman; 10min unguided exposure through a 300mm f/2.8 lens onto Kodak Elitechrome 200 slide film. Camera mounted on an EQ6.

Slide digitised through a Canoscan FS2720 scanner; raw scan processed in Photoshop6 to adjust levels/colour balance to match original.

27-October-2003
(88kb)

This was taken by Bruno Daversin from Normandy, France on September 17th, in la Hague (10 km from Cherbourg) with a 24" Cassegrain telescope and a webcam + infrared filter.
It is a 600 raw images composite, with a planetary morphing and Vancittert filter applied. The seeing was very good (8/10 Pickering).
More images of the moon can be found at:
www.ludiver.com

20-October-2003
(170kb)

13-October-2003
(45kb)

6-October-2003
(170kb)

The nebula vdB142 located in the IC1396 complex in Cepheus, is known as the 'Elephant Trunk' Nebula.

This image was taken by Eddie Guscott at the 2003 Equinox Sky Camp at Thetford (September 2003), using a 15cm/f9 Apochromatic refractor and Starlight Express HX916 CCD Camera, with the LRGB colour image processing technique.

29-September-2003
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22-September-2003
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Nova Scuti was discovered by Hideo Nishimura on 2003 Aug 28.58UT - the regular starfield image [left] gives little clue to the violent underlying stellar activity revealed [right] in an animation of the nova's spectrum over a five day period. Initially resembling the spectrum of peculiar variable V838 Mon [Nova Mon 02], it changed daily with the hydrogen-alpha emission line [highlighted by red bubble] soon dominating in classic nova form.

Images and spectra by Maurice Gavin. 60 sec exposures taken after dusk with 30cm f/6.3 SCT and MX9 CCD camera. For the spectra a Rainbow Optics grating was placed in the light path immediately before the CCD. The spectrum profile was extracted via Pixwin camera software and animated via PaintShop Pro Animation Wizard. More images, spectra and links are available on Maurice's home page: www.astroman.fsnet.co.uk

15-September-2003
(24kb)

Solar Prominence taken over a 4 hour period on 2003/8/30 by James Weightman, Cirencester, Gloucestershire.
Equipment used was a Televue Pronto + Coronado ASP60 ("<0.7A") H-alpha filter + Olympus C5050Z digital camera. Photos at 40mm eyepiece with 2x Barlow. Exposure: 1/100 sec ISO100 f/2.3, zoom @ effective focal length 15.9mm.

08-September-2003
(207kb)

01-September-2003
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Damian Peach was lucky to be imaging Mars from the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, La Palma, Canary Islands (2360m alt.) as part of BBC2 / Open University "All Night Star Party". This image was captured in the early hours to the 22nd August. 
Damian writes: 

"Here is perhaps the best set of images taken at the Observatories on La Palma, obtained on August 22nd - which I almost didn't take due to being so tired at 4am!.
Out of interest I measured the smallest albedo markings resolved on the Martian disk in the red light image. The smallest details revealed are ~0.4" in angular width.
Solis Lacus is well defined, with Coprates, Melas Lacus/Tithonius Lacus also well seen. Detached SPC patch, NPH and Olympus Mons on the morning limb.
It was a memorable trip, and I shall never forget the great opposition of Mars seen from the Mountain-top..."

Equipment used was: 10" (25cm) Meade SCT @ f/55. Philips PCVC 740k ToUcam Pro Webcam. Total Exposure times: ~650 x 0.04 secs.
Seeing good (Pickering 6-8.) Robo DIMM Reading (0.8" - 1.0" FWHM.) Transparency excellent (7.0mag.) Wind N (22-24km/hr.)

25-August-2003
(87kb)

Martin Mobberley has constructed this animation of Mars from frames he has taken between July 22nd and August 15th.
The scale for all the images is the same so Mars getting bigger as the sequence runs its course, is real.
Martin used his 0.3m LX200 and ToUcam Pro webcam.
The animation was created with the Paint Shop Pro Animator.

18-August-2003
(267kb)

11-August-2003
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28-July-2003
(15kb)

Imaged by Damian Peach from Tenerife on December 24 2002. Damian recently selected ~260 images from the raw data for averaging to produce this very natural looking image.
Taken with a Celestron 11" Schmidt Cassegrain at F/31 and SBIG ST-5c CCD camera. LRGB image at 00:48 UT (~9 min window.)

21-July-2003
(23kb)

Imaged by Anthony Ayiomamitis on June 07, 2003 at 21:04:15 - 21:04:53 UT+3 from Athens, Greece.
Equipment : Celestron 14" SCT, Losmandy G-11 GEM, Nikon Coolpix 995, ScopeTronix STWA14 Eyepiece/Adapter
Exposures : 6 x 1/125th sec @ f2.6, ISO 400, JPG RGB Fine Image Format, 2048x1536 Image Size, Autodark Subtraction
Software : Registax, Photoshop V6
Processing : Resampling (50%), Despeckle, Stack-Alignment, Unsharp Masking, Grayscale Mode (16-bit)

14-July-2003
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07-July-2003
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Imaged by Kevin Smith on the 3rd July 2003, the Sun showing the region NOAA 0375 with the massive sunspot. The active region is about 10 times the diameter of earth.

It is a white light shot through a Takahashi FCT76 at prime focus using a Herschel wedge, and a Basler digital camera, with A4I Docu software.

30-June-2003
(55kb)

11" (28 cm) Celestron SCT @ f/22.1. Philips PCVC 740K ToUcam Pro Webcam. Total exposure time: ~380 x 0.04secs. Seeing initially fair-good (Pickering 5-7.) Later deteriorated to very poor. Transparency fair (3.0mag) with Saharan dust haze present. No wind. No dew. Eq Diam=18.7" Altitude= 83 degrees.

23-June-2003
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16-June-2003
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top (45kb)

bottom(185kb)

Some more images of the Annular Solar Eclipse.

Top: By John Rogers, taken at Cawder Scotland. John writes:

"Having got up in the foggy twilight of coastal Nairn, we ventured up towards the bleak moors, past Cawdor Castle hidden behind dark foggy forests, half-hearing the witches chanting 'Hail Macbeth, Thane of Cawdor', as we climbed above the forests and the fog, until we saw the grey haze of the horizon pierced by a blood-red dagger, which was one side of the almost-fully-eclipsed sun, and as the mists subsided, the complete red ring of the rising 'black hole sun' made its appearance, partly broken into tiny beads, for a brief minute or two, before breaking into an ever-brightening crescent that revived the landscape with sunlight. 

Yes, it was a good show."

Bottom: By Peter Paice, from Belfast. Taken using an Olympus 730 Ultra Zoom (at X10) digital camera.

02-June-2003
(47kb)

Hopes for good weather in the north of Scotland were dashed by fog and cloud early morning on the 31st May. 

A few spots appear to have been clear enough for observation of the annularity and subsequent partial phases. Many observers in more southerly locations enjoyed fine views of this great partial eclipse. 

Image details:

Left: By Eddie Guscott from Burnham on Crouch, Essex. 200mm Olympus telephoto lens with no filterl (the cloudbank/fog did the filtering) Olympus OM1 camera at 1/500 second on Provia 400 slide film

Centre top: By Martin Mobberley from Suffolk. Composite of frames taken at 0355 UT & 0413UT using Nikon Coolpix 5700 on 8x zoom, no filter. 

Centre bottom: By Anthony Ayiomamitis from Greece. Canon EOS 3 camera, Canon EOS 100-300 USM II zoom lens (set at 300mm), Fuji Superia 100 film, 1/30th sec @ f/5.6.

Right top: By Dave Thomson (Liverpool AS), from Dornoch, Scotland. The Annularity taken with telephoto lens.

Right bottom: By Kevin Smith, from Burghead, Moray, Scotland. Images taken using a video camera attached to a camera lens. The chip size is one third of an inch, and the zoom lens was set at 235mm.

More pictures will be available soon via the BAA News Pages. 

26-May-2003
(22kb)

19-May-2003
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Anthony Ayiomamitis took these frames of the ingress of Mercury from Greece.
Date: May 07, 2003 Time: 08:13:00 - 08:18:00 (UT+3)
Location: Athens, Greece
Equipment: Celestron 14" SCT + Losmandy G11 + Baader off-axis filter .... for guiding. TeleVue Pronto piggy-backed onto 14" SCT equipped with Coronado SolarMax 60/BF10 h-alpha system.
Nikon Coolpix 995 using afocal projection with ScopeTronix SW14 eyepiece/adapter
Exposures: 1/125th sec @ f4.1 / ISO 100 / RGB TIFF file format / 2048x1536 image size / 60 seconds between exposures.
Processing: All images were obtained using afocal projection with a Nikon Coolpix 995 and a TeleVue Pronto working at f/6.5 and piggy-backed onto a Celestron 14" SCT. Each image was decomposed into its constituent RGB channels with the G and B channels discarded due to signal leakage (particularly the Blue channel) within the CP995. Using the residual R channel as base, a Fast Fourier Transform was performed followed by linear stretching, Lucy-Richardson deconvolution (sigma: 0.7, kappa:15, iterations: 20), levels adjustments and nominal unsharp masking. AR10351 and AR10354 were used for the image reduction of the reconstructed RGB frames and generation of the consequent time series depicted above. 
The Nikon CP995 and a cellular phone used to time exposures were calibrated to the time server operated by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to within an accuracy of one second.

Hi resolution images, movies and other pictures can be found on the News Page, Mercury Transit Observations.

12-May-2003 (20kb)

With good weather in England, a large number of observers were able to witness the transit of Mercury. 

Top left: By Eddie Guscott; 80mm F6.15 refractor with Mylar Solar Film filter 2 x stacked colour filters in front of ccd camera (to further reduce brigtness levels) HX916 ccd camera Taken from Corringham, Essex. The image is a single frame at 15/1000s, taken about mid transit (about 07.34UT) on 7 May, 2003. Monochrome ccd image with colour added in Photoshop

Top Right: By Martin Mobberley; Third contact (or very nearly), 125mm f/15 ETX (f.l. 1900mm) and Philips ToUcam Pro webcam. Orion ND5 filter. Exposure 1/500th sec.

Bottom Left: By Kevin Smith; viewed in Calcium K line,  80mm f11.4 Vixen with 2.5x Powermate, 5 angstrom Daystar Calcium K Line filter.

Bottom Right: By Nick James, at 09:40; ISO 200 film, 1/500s, Meade ETX 90, Baader film filter).

Hi resolution images, movies and other pictures can be found on the News Page, Mercury Transit Observations.

05-May-2003
(16kb)

On the 5th April, John Fletcher recorded quasar 3C273 at magnitude V=12.4. It has been generally around V=13 and varies by a few tenths of a magnitude, but this has been a  significant brightening and is worth continued monitoring. 
John Fletcher used a Meade 0.254m f/5.5 Schmidt Cassegrain, with Starlight Express MX916 CCD camera.

28-Apr-2003
(26kb)

The Sun in H-Alpha taken by Kevin Smith on 22.04.03 approx 13.30. Conditions poor, hazy, with intermittent cloud.Equipment details: FS128 with 77mm ERF - Daystar 0.5 ATM H alpha filter and 2x Lille telecentric, on Paramount ME.

21-Apr-2003 (50kb) 

14-Apr-2003 (82kb)

By Geoffrey Johnstone using a Starlight Express HX 516 CCD Camera, and a 60mm object glass with focal length 360mm.

07-Apr-2003
(76kb)

Solar Analemma with the Tholos (360-350 BC) at Ancient Delphi, Greece, taken by Anthony Ayiomamitis. 
Date: Jan 12, 2002 - Dec 21, 2002 06:00:00 UTC. 
Equipment: Canon A-1 Canon FD 24 mm @ f/11  Fuji Super HQ 200 Baadar Solar Filter ND5
Exposures: 1/60 sec 38 multiple exposures + 1 foreground exposure Software: Photoshop V6 
Processing: Cropping / Resizing Layers JPG Compression

31-Mar-2003 (141kb)

24-Mar-2003
(187kb)

17-Mar-2003 (7kb)

10-Mar-2003 (26kb)

03-Mar-2003 (71kb)

24-Feb-2003 (101kb)

By Damian Peach, an image of Jupiter taken on the 5th of January 2003 using a Philips Webcam and Celestron C11.

Damian writes "The Jupiter result equals the best results obtained with the cooled ST-5c I also use. As already illustrated by others, producing high resolution images need not cost the Earth..."

The above image is the average of about 550 images. 

There have been relatively few successfully completed analemmas (seven total including the pioneering photo in 1979), the imaging of the sun over local skies during the course of twelve months is considered one of the most difficult and demanding astronomical phenomenon to image. The analemma presented above is particularly unique as it is the first analemma ever imaged on the southern meridian, the first analemma ever imaged in Greece as well as the first analemma ever imaged during a single calendar year.

Image by Anthony Ayiomamitis taken between Jan 12, 2002 - Dec 21, 2002 from Athens, Greece, using a Canon A-1 35mm camera, lens Canon FD 24 mm @ f/11, with film Fuji Super HQ 200, and a Baadar Solar Filter ND5.
Exposures were 1/60 sec 41 multiple exposures + 1 foreground exposure on the same frame of film.

27-Jan-2003 (127kb)

An image of Saturn taken by Damian Peach in Tenerife on the 24th December 2002, one week after Saturn oppostion.

11" (28cm) SCT @ f/31.4 (0.23"/pixel.) and an SBIG ST-5c camera, were used to capture LRGB images:
Integrated Light (no IR rejection): ~160 x 0.35secs.
Red + IR rejection: ~30 x 0.60secs
Green + IR rejection: ~ 30 x 0.50secs
Blue + IR rejection: ~20 x 0.90secs

The seeing was good-excellent (pickering 6-10.)

The lens was an OMC 140 Maksutov (2000mm, f14) and the camera was a Nikon D100 digital SLR working at 800ASA, 1/250 sec exposure. The picture is a composite of two taken at 091138 UT and 091144 UT (3rd contact).

The 'large view' image is 1024x768, and could be used as desktop 'wallpaper'.

Equipment is a 16inch Meade operating at F6.3 with SBIG ST10me CCD camera.

Taken by Dave Thompson of Liverpool Astronomical Society, with a Zenit SLR camera, and 28mm lens. Exposure times were 10-15 seconds on ISO 400 or 800 film. The this picture (155kb) shows two meteors below Leo, this one (182kb) shows a meteor in Ursa Major.

Taken by Dr Russell Cockman of the Association of Falkirk Astronomers. This (36kb) (4min exp) shows three meteors W of the radiant (the brightest was mag -1 observed at 03:52 UT), this photo (68kb) has two meteors - to the left and above the radiant (observed between 04:46 and 04:50 UT).

[Due to the scanning and digitisation process, the fainter meteors may not be visible in these images, Ed.]

Furher pictures taken by Peter can be found on his website: http://members.lycos.co.uk/peterjgarbett

Also a spectrum of this Nova taken on 22nd September by Maurice Gavin.

Images taken on the 16th August 2002.

MPC astrometric information:
K02N40Y C2002 08 16.86503 21 06 04.63 +02 39 19.7 11.6 V J93
K02N40Y C2002 08 16.86682 21 06 02.19 +02 39 53.7 11.6 V J93
K02N40Y C2002 08 16.86760 21 06 01.13 +02 40 08.9 11.7 V J93
K02N40Y C2002 08 16.86856 21 05 59.80 +02 40 26.4 11.8 V J93
K02N40Y C2002 08 16.87042 21 05 57.22 +02 41 02.7 11.6 V J93
K02N40Y C2002 08 16.87119 21 05 56.15 +02 41 17.6 11.6 V J93
K02N40Y C2002 08 16.87215 21 05 54.81 +02 41 36.0 11.5 V J93
K02N40Y C2002 08 16.87311 21 05 53.50 +02 41 54.9 11.6 V J93