The AstroNerd Observatory build starts today. Well not so much the building bit, more the actual getting the shed (to be converted) delivered and built !

I'll add each phase and at the end I should have a step by step guide on how to build your own with full pictures and details. I'm not a DIY person so the guide will be in noob terms !

The observatory will be about getting the best for the money, it wont be a cheap crappy thing that wont last, but something that will last and see me through many years of astronomy. Plus I'm on a budget set down by the wife (Not the real reason!!!!).

Check out the start here or click the link to the left.

So I received an email from the council regarding the street light at the front of my property and the vast amount of sodium light it bleeds into my back garden. Link to original post and picture:

Following your letter, as previously stated this was discussed at the Council meeting last evening. Whilst sympathetic to your hobby the Councillors felt that the alteration to the light would involve an expense to the Council and furthermore, that this would set a precedent to similar requests in the future, coupled with the concern of such alteration causing other complications for residents. Therefore, in this instance this Council felt unable to alter this light in the circumstances.

I am sorry that this decision is not favourable, but trust that if you have any further queries you will feel free to contact this office.

I wasn't able to make the meeting to hear what was fully said but I will be trying to take this further. Already sent an email to that effect. . .

Watch this space!!!!

Sick of all the light pollution I've been on the hunt for an observatory over the past few weeks. The budget started off as £430 all in, which will need to include the extra wood for the stiffer internal frame, wheels for the roll-off roof, security, black paint for internal walls and anything I may need along the way!

A proper dome observatory was swiftly out of the question with a price tag of £2k upwards. I'd seen a lot of forum posts about home-made ones which got me looking down that route. I started off looking at a £260 Apex roof, with overlap wood walls at the size of 8x6. This quickly became apparent that it would be the best design, not made in the best way and the wrong size !!

I made three other choices that were various sizes and design but I've now settled for a tongue and groove, pent roof at 9x7. The budget, well lets say that nothing ever stays within budget. The shed is being made to order and delivered on the 17th April at a cost of £430 !!! That's right the whole budget is on the shed leaving me to find the rest of the money to get everything else I'm going to need, which at the moment I have no idea what that will be !!!

I'll get something down on paper and post it. I'll be sure to keep you informed with every step I take. I might also write a guide too as I see a lot of people on forums asking how to and what if's.

Wow, simply amazing.

What Nasa does for the sum of £300 million Robert Harrison did it for £500. Robert a computer engineer from West Yorkshire started his space project in 2008 with Icarus One. It basically consisted of Canon PowerShot A560, a GPS tracking module and a weather balloon.

The balloon reaches 110,892ft, four times the height of Mount Everest and pops! The camera is released from it's journey into the stratosphere and begins a new one back down to earth attached to a mini parachute.

Mr Harrison said the results had been "phenomenal".

"I could never have expected to get the results I have - you can see the curvature of the Earth, the blackness of space and the thin blue line that makes up the atmosphere"

"For a hobby I had this remote control helicopter and I wanted to take some pictures of my house using it," he said.

"It very quickly became apparent I could not do it with a helicopter, so I decided on a balloon."

You can learn more about Robert Harrison and his project at www.robertharrison.org

The website has been down due to heavy traffic and is currently being redirected to his Flickr page here.

After 4 months away because of other commitments, not only am I back for good now but I've got tons planned for the months ahead!

I found it disheartening towards the end of last year not being able to get out into the garden due to all the light pollution around me. To the North I have a street lamp (see 10 second exposure below) which kills the view of the North Star. South I have an industrial estate with a bus depot (transport depots aren't included in the light pollution law in the UK due to health and safety). East is fairly clear then, West within 2 miles I have a major city.

With that said, I've written to my local council about the street light to the north of me (above) which lights my garden to the rear of the house. I had a favourable response, the "job" will be priced up and my letter will be taken to the board of local councillors for their approval. I have the option to go along when they discuss it on the 7th April which I may go to, hopefully not to scream and shout at them if they tell me they wont change it. I'll let you all know how that goes!!

Second thing I'm doing to combat the light pollution it building an observatory, a roll-off roof made from a wooden pent shed. I'm still researching how to customise it and once I have a proper plan I'll provide full pictures and details. If any of you out there have any suggestions please let me know.

Lastly to get my enthusiasm back I've bought another telescope !!! HAHA, I know, I know I don't know how to use the other stuff yet but hey, I had some spare cash and thought it would be a good idea to get me back into it with a new toy! So back to Viking Optical Centre I went and purchased the new SkyWatcher 200P DS 8" f/5 Newt.. In fact I'm picking that up tomorrow.

I will be updating the website regularly from now on with links and downloads so keep coming back for those too.

Lastly I want to say thanks for all the people that visit the site and the emails I've gotten so far, keep coming and keep the emails coming also.

Nasa's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is now in a 50km-high orbit around the Moon and has been able to resolve Apollo 17 hardware. The image shows the descent stage left on the Moon's surface by Jack Schmitt's and Gene Cernan's Lunar Module. Even the flag they planted is just visible.

What do all budding novice astrophotographers take their first image of?

The Moon!

I managed to get some scope time last night, I didn't need to polar align or connect anything. Just me, the EQ6, the 80ED and the 20D.

Snapped off about 15 shots at different speeds and got a couple of really nice detailed images with Mare Tranquillitatis & Serenitatis as the main two large dark spots and some really nice prominant shadows on craters Hipperarchus and Albategnius in the middle of the picture.

Sharpened and removed the colour in Photoshop CS3.

So I have the latest edition of Starry Night delivered and an article in there on remote telescopes takes me by surprise!

I had no idea that it was possible to use massive and expensive scopes all around the world, one of which is free.

Bradford Robotic Telescope (BRT) is a completely free remote telescope that anyone with an internet connection and web browser can use. Just a quick sign up process and away you go.

You select what to look at, either pre-defined locations or your own co-ordinates, choose which filter, how long you want the exposure and what telescope to use. It's that simple.

The telescopes are on top of Mount Teide in Tenerife and you have a choice of 3 to use:

* Constellation - for large field of view shots.
* Cluster - sensitive enough to show background stars in an image of the moon
* Galaxy - 14 inch aperture, use with galaxies, planets, nebs and the moon.

Here is my first attempt using the 14inch, I used the wrong filter (OIII) and over cooked the exposure at 160000ms!

I've uploaded the image here with details.

At least I can still image when all I seem to have at the moment is cloudy skies.

It seems's that the Haydron Collider may be sabotaging itself, according to two physicists the so called God Particle is coming back in time and stopping the collider before it can create a version of itself.

The news hit the New York Times:
"the hypothesized Higgs Boson... might be so abhorrent to nature that its creation would ripple backward through time and stop the collider before it could make one, like a time traveller who goes back in time to kill his grandfather."

The two physicists reckon that the American Congress closed the doors on funding their own version in '93' and why the great LHC switch on last year also failed!

With the possibility of Earth swallowing black holes and time travelling particles this machine sounds like its shaping up to be the most important and expensive experiment ever conceived.

So last night I get everything out about 21:30, unlike the last time with just the scope and a camera tripod, it was all out and connected up.

I live close to a city centre and an industrial estate so it's fairly light polluted, I found it very hard to see Polaris in the Polar Scope, let alone line it up accurately. It was nearly a full moon too but still !! The red light inside the polar scope also didn't help but made it worse, once that was on I couldn't see any stars !!!

After a couple of hours I had lined up 2 bright stars in Cassey and 2 in Ursa Major, Polaris was somewhere through the EP !

I then added my scopes (piggy backed) and weights to balance it. Then spun the RA back to line up the above stars again.

After that I wired it all up:

Laptop -> Synscan Controller -> Mount
Laptop -> QHY5 -> Mount

I left my new Canon 20d off for my first go as I didn't think I would get around to taking any images.... I was right !

Turning everything on and opening PHD and SN5 I thought I was set.... however I couldn't get anything from the QHY5, PHD wasn't showing anything, I had the settings to 'On Camera' and a 1 sec exposure. I saw nothing, just lines going across the screen.. However if I move this in a dark room and then to a light room it whites out so the actual camera must be OK.

Everything was getting wet with dew, the laptop, scope, mount and the foam in the cases.. Guess I'm going to need to invest in some dew heating strips, I never thought it was going to be that bad!

As soon as I was about to slew to my first target... clouds formed up and that was the end of that for the rest of the night !!

So not the best start, but at least it is a start and I don't mind it went badly, it gives me a starting point.

I posted my nights experience on the StarGazers Lounge forum here to see what help I could get.!

I haven't updated the blog since Kelling Heath as I've not been able to get out into the night and test my equipment. Too many clouds and at the moment and a school that's being built has flood lights on most of the night clogging up the night sky !

I don't really want to travel away from home just yet as when I do get everything out it will be the first time. So I need to be near a wireless access point..... Just in case I need to hit the forums!

I have however got myself connected up with the EQ6 and a second hand laptop from Ebay. I also bought a second hand copy of The sky6 and Starry Night Pro 5. I wasn't sure which one would suit my needs so I got both.

Using the EQASCOM drivers I'm now able to move the mount to anywhere I click in the programs. They were both very easy to setup.

Currently I prefer The Sky as it feels and works better. However Starry Night Pro 5 does look good so I can't take anything away from that! I will review the software at some point from a beginners point of view, including all the free ones too.

To add to my collection of Astro equipment I can now add a Canon 20D :) Also bought from Ebay !!!

The next clear night I will be out..... Light pollution allowing !

Well I'm back from the Star Party at Kelling Heath and not only was it great to see some of the telescopes and the setups people were using, I also won a Celestron #8 light yellow filter in the raffle which I was pleased about.

The day started off with a talk from Bob Mizon of CfDS who gave a great talk on 'Ten Objects to see in a Light Polluted Area'. It was good to hear and see that some of the great sights of space will still be visible from where I live including:

- NGC 7331 Galaxy
- M31 (Andromeda) Galaxy
- Gamma Andromedae
- VY Canis Majoris
- Beta Canum Venaticorum
- The Wristwatch in Camelopardalis
- NGC 457 an open star cluster that he described as an Owl but myself and my wife though it looked more like Wall-e !!

The second talk that I was most looking forward to was 'Basic Astrophotography'. However this was a major let down as it wasn't so much "Basic", as it was a show and tell by the host of all the pictures he's been able to take with his kit that cost thousands upon thousands of pounds. Don't get me wrong the pictures were amazing but it was hardly basic. But nevermind.

Then we went on a journey around the site to look at all the scopes people had setup. This bit was great. I was glad to see that my HEQ6 mount was the star of the show with most people using it. There were plenty of home made dobs and some trully amazing kits including a caravan that had it's own dome observatory on top!!

The day was then finished off with a raffle with the main prize of a signed original print by Patrick Moore of the Moon. I however won a Celestron #8 light yellow filter which after reading about can beused for Moon shots.

As we were leaving the clouds rolled in and it felt really damp, I'm hoping that it cleared enough later for the people to see.

All in all a great day, everyone was nice who we spoke to and even the Mrs wasn't totally bored !

My only regret that I'm kicking myself for was not bringing, of all things, a camera..

For a long time I've wanted to try a few star trail pictures, so tonight I grabbed my Nikon D50, tripod and iPod and out into the garden I went.

I live fairly close to a city so light pollution is a major problem for me, I didn't realise as much until I did a few test shots to find the right exposure level. A 30 sec exposure in the darkest place in my garden looks like I've taken the shot in perfect daylight!

So I set the exposure time down to 15 seconds and aimed the camera into Sirius. Using the remote I clicked off 104 shots at 24mm f3.8. Starting at about 21:45 and finishing at 22:15.

I then used a program called Startrails which stacked each of my photos making one long exposure. Great program for a noobie and very easy to use. However my final picture (here) had a yucky orange light poluted glow to it and would you believe it and plane flying straight down the middle!!

Not happy with this I then used Photoshop CS3 to change the saturation to -60 for each image and remove the plane trail.

I'm proud of my final result here.

I found out today reading the local newspaper that one of the biggest Star Parties is being held in Norfolk at Kelling Heath on the 18th and 19th of September.

Richard Deighton from Loughton Astronomical Society, the star party organiser, says: “We choose Kelling Heath because it is one of the best sites in the country for star gazing due to the very low levels of light pollution. This is thanks to there being few dense urban areas which omit a great deal of light and there is also very little industrial activity which produces atmospheric gasses and clouds the view of the stars.”

There will be talks, items for sale, a raffle and a chance to see what people are using to see the stars.

Last night I used the Pocket Universe on the iPod touch, for £1.79 this app is amazing..Its intuitive and gives coordinates of objects to a magnitude of 7. I will be giving a full review on this app and others like it in my next update. I was able to make out most of the brighter constellations in my area which I've never been able to do before!

I have been trying to work out how to use my eyepieces with the SW Equinox 80. I tried them briefly on the 8th with the scope mounted on my camera tripod. Big mistake!

The eyepieces that I'm using are from the Revelation eyepiece set. Not really knowing what I was doing yet I pointed the scope towards the moon being the brightest thing in the sky and I attached my camera and started snapping away. With no idea on ISO or speed the pictures where obviously out of focus or too light or too dark, but they were generally really bad. Swiftly moving on I decided to put in each eyepiece, none of them would focus on the moon even with the x2 barlow attached. So now I'm really confused and it's back to the drawing board!

I'm obviously doing something wrong but I have no idea what yet.

I've seen some forum posts about how to work out the magnification and what's best for your telescope but these have all been confusing to me so far.

My aim is to take a good clear picture of M31 (Andromeda) by summer 2010 ..... I'll get there.

It's been cloudy here over the weekend with no moon let alone stars visible! So I decided to move the website from a free host and domain to my new home as AstroNerd.co.uk.

Also added a Flickr link over to the left which I will be updating after my viewing and photography sessions. Added also is a YouTube link which again I'll try and update on a regualr basis, currently I have a few mission videos from Apollo 17 which is my favourite Apollo mission thanks to Jack Schmitt.

Lastly I've been adding direct download links to Astronomy apps for your iPhone or iPod touch in the downloads section. At some point I will try and do a review and a top 10.

My first telescope was when I was 21, it was a cheap reflector with a mount that moved if an ant walked past!

However after seeing my first close up of the moon it didn't matter, I remember spending hours looking at it and it made me hungry for more, I wanted to see everything... First stop was Jupiter, I picked a moonless night and spent some time looking on the internet at where I could find it. I could make out the different layers and the big black spot. By chance I also managed to see Saturn and its amazing ring.

I was so excited I had to make all my family see.

As the viewing night came to a close I was disappointed to think that I couldn't see these again during the day and to show other people my astronomy prowess!!!

The next clear night I borrowed my now father in laws SLR and bought an adapter to fit it to my telescope. I had no idea about ISOs, f-stops, stacking or anything else photography related! I knew how to find the moon and how to point and click a camera. Being film, I had no way of knowing how the photos would turn out until I got them processed.

I had heard someone say that taking pictures at night needed a longer exposure. So armed with this knowledge I used the whole film at the same 'guestimated' long exposure time of about 60 seconds and couldn’t wait until the next day to get them processed. I had bought expensive film and paid for the fastest processing job the shop did.

I couldn't wait !!!

Upon picking up my award winning photos and opening them to see what amazing pictures I had produced I was utterly mortified!

Each photo was an over exposed shaky blob of white!!!

A few years later I bought a Nikon D50 with a 75mm - 200mm lens, one clear night I decided to try taking a few shots of the moon again, however this time there was a lunar eclipse happening. Armed with the knowledge on how to use my camera and the settings it offered, I took my first real amazing photos of something quite literally out of this world.

This time I was truly hooked and I wanted to do it right.

Over the next year and a half I did my research and in 2009 for my 30th my wife bought me the following:

Skywatcher EQ6 Synscan
Skywatcher Equinox 80ED
QHY5 guide camera
Skywatcher travel 80 guide scope
A bunch of lenses and filters
A red torch

( I have a good wife! )

Now I was ready for my own exploration into space.

This website was created as an online journal, to allow me to capture my viewing sessions in writting and record my findings and images.

I'm very new to astronomy and consider myself as a complete novice. You hear people say that starting off small and learning the basics before you start is the better option...

Well I don't agree, I need to be able to know the equipment I have can take amazing and stunning photos of deep space. That it can grow with my experience ans knowledge. I know it's going to be hard and will take time but that's OK too. I have plenty of time and patiance for my new hobby.