Starry Dave's Window Sill Observatory

DMD Baby Birds Feeding

Birds Comments Off

Jun 092020

This was taken with my SX530HS using the CHDK extended video script to capture 200 minutes of video. I then selected all the feeder visits in DMD which produced a 27 minute ShotCut project file. This was slowed to half speed to better show the action and the sound track was cleaned up in Audacity to remove camera and traffic noise. Watch out for the one legged blackbird which we have nursed back to health over the past few months.

DSSR+AstroKam Moon

CHDK AstroKam, Moon Comments Off

Jun 022020

These images were taken using my Canon SX530HS with its zoom set to 100x (2400mm EFL). Capture was controlled by CHDK AstroKam and autoguiding by DSSR. Best 500 of 1000 jpegs were cropped in PIPP, stacked in AS3! and wavelets in Registax.

Another SX530HS Moon

CHDK AstroKam, Moon Comments Off

May 102020

AstroKam Spring Collection

CHDK AstroKam, Deep Sky Comments Off

Apr 302020

Scotland had a great spell of cloud free weather in Spring 2020 and below are some of my deep sky captures. All were captured on my Canon PowerShot SX530HS superzoom camera using CHDK AstroKam, stacked in Deep Sky Stacker and processed in StarTools. Click an image for full size.

CHDK AstroKam M101

CHDK AstroKam, Deep Sky Comments Off

Apr 182020

M101 captured with a Canon SX530HS at 50x zoom in CHDK AstroKam. 50x200sec lights at f8 and ISO 1600 with 15 each darks and offsets. Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker, processed in StarTools and polished in Paint.net.

58 Galaxies from SX530HS

CHDK AstroKam, Deep Sky Comments Off

Mar 222020

I took a shot of the night sky with my SX530HS and submitted it to nova.astrometry.net for analysis. They returned the result within a few minutes, including a copy of the original image with deep sky object labels superimposed. Below is a detail of that image.

Pretty good for a point and shoot camera and a great service from http://nova.astrometry.net.

3D Gravity Simulation

Uncategorized Comments Off

Mar 092020

StarryOrbits Test Animation

Video shows massive stars being fired into star clusters and how they interact under gravity alone.

SX530HS and Tripod Moon

CHDK AstroKam, Moon Comments Off

Mar 072020

The image above was captured using my SX530HS at 50x zoom on a standard tripod. The camera was running a CHDK script which locked it in continuous shooting mode to capture 1400 frames over 17 minutes. All frames were ISO100, f6.5 and 1/250s with autofocus on. I needed to nudge the camera now and then to keep the moon on screen.

Grayscaled and cropped in PIPP, stacked in AS!3 (75% best), wavelets in Registax6 and polished in MS Photos. Not as detailed as my previous 100x shots but much more convenient to capture. I can just pop out when I see a gap in the clouds. Next stop – try same method on the Sun.

And here is another captured in 15 minutes using the method above.

Moon without Telescope

CHDK AstroKam, Moon Comments Off

Mar 042020

Below is a shot of the Moon I took with my amazing little Canon SX530HS camera.

Click for full size image

This was made from 400 jpegs shot at 100x zoom, ISO100, 1/160s, f6.5, AF-on which were captured in CHDK AstroKam. PIPP then grayscaled and culled this to 327 images based on brightness which were stacked in AS!3. Wavelets were applied in Registax 6 and final processing in MS Photos.

I also did some captures with jpegs at 50x zoom and 60sec videos at 100x and 200x zoom to discover the best resulting image. Below are crops of each method and I decided that 100x jpegs are the way to go in future.

And here is my latest Moon shot with my SX530HS at 100x zoom.

Click for full size image

200x Zoom Moon

CHDK AstroKam, Moon Comments Off

Feb 072020

I just shot this with my Canon SX530HS at 200x zoom.

15x 60sec video clips captured in CHDK AstroKam, grayscaled in Virtualdub, processed in AviStack, stiched in ICE and inverted in Paint.NET. Focus was a bit off but still not bad for a second hand camera with no scope.

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