22:17
“Horizonazing”
Horizonazing isn’t really a word, but let’s pretend – it means to define the horizon, in this case the one of Station III (mine) at the UFO so that I can know my limits and not image the roof, the tree or the wall (I suspect some of the frames on my photos have been taken with the scope partially pointing at one of this objects – tree or roof ).
So Hugo Silva was at the UFO and together we defined my horizon, We started at a particular Azimuth (5º) and saw at what altitude the scope was cleared, we did this with me pointing remotely and Hugo serving as a sight for the scope, we did it for the full 360º of the horizon. So many thanks Hugo you now have made sure I’m using the full 101 mm of my scope 
I then used Sky Map’s Horizon Editor to define it and show it on the sky simulator, bellow is a Print Screen of Ufo’s Station III Horizon, I painted a bit on top to show where the Roof and a very unpleasant tree were. You can also see the editor interface used and my Eastern Horizon
10:34
Open Cluster NGC 1245
This past week we had at UFO some of the best nights for imaging that we’ve ever had, the seeing was great and there was no Moon.
NGC 1245 imaged bellow is an open cluster in Perseus just beside Mellote 20 – Alpha Persei Cluster it is not an often imaged so I decided to give it a try.
It is at an estimated distance of 2.5 kpc and it contains around 200 stars it has an apparent dimension of 10′.
(click image for full size view)
Image Details:
Televue NP101 mounted on a Losmandy Gemini G11
Captured using an ATIK 16 HR
Astronomik RGB filter set
Exposure Times:
R + G – 20X5 minutes
B – 20X6 minutes
14:20
WASP-21b
WASP-21b transit on 2010-10-16 (click for full size)
With thanks to João Gregório for the plot and data normalization.
09:39
Space Rock – (1853) McElroy
At Hugo’s suggestion I did a small animation of (1853) McElroy an asteroid wandering around our solar system
%20McElroy19102010.gif "(1853) McElroy")
Click animation for a bigger view – In the bigger view one can spot a lot of faint background galaxies that give another dimension to the animation
Image is composed of 2 frames of the same field taken with almost an hour interval
22:18
10 hours of day and night
From last saturday:
12:41
A Pacman and a Comet
After almost 2 months without doing any Astronomy yesterday I had a Mouth Full of Astronomy. Hugo Silva, and Fernando Delgado were also present, Fernando doing some images and Hugo an exoplanet transit. The night was great with an excellent seeing.
I, after checking everything was ok after a 2 month pause, decided to finish the Pacman Nebula, I already had some late August frames, and yesterday decided to add some more, the result 23 frames of 15 minutes (5 Hours and 45 Minutes) in H-alpha that can be seen below:
NGC 281 or more popularly known as Pacman Nebula is an Emission Nebula in Cassiopeia discovered in 1883 by Edward Emerson Barnard it is at an estimated distance of 9.5 kly
Afterwards and at Hugo’s suggestion I decided to go to 103PHartley and boy is that comet moving fast, around 8” per minute, with it moving so fast and my resolution I binned it at 2X2 so that I could lose some resolution at the gain of having a bigger exposure, so I managed to do 66 frames of 40 seconds – along the course of 44 minutes – and the results can be seen below:
Stack of 66 frames of 40 seconds:
Also Managed to do a movie of the movement of 103P Hartley across the sky, so below is an animation of 44 minutes of its movement against the starry sky, aren’t nature and the Universe beautiful and awe inspiring? Looking Up sometimes everything looks too still (although nothing really is, they just move to slowly for our human eye to notice) and in animations like this one truly realizes how dynamic everything is:
103P Hartley Movement across the Sky
Field of View: Around 50′ wide
15:49
Fast Forward
Just a few seconds captured by our monitoring camera:
18:24
Messier 13 and Fernando’s Monty Python Night
Fernando Delgado as been imaging M13 with his scope for some nights now, Unfortunately Saturday after imaging the Below M13 his computer started to have the Hiccups and although we still don’t know what happened we believe it was his disk that “fried”. So Sunday Fernando went to the UFO to collect the computer for study. After collecting the computer and our only monitor at the UFO Fernando was about to close the trunk when someone spoke to him, he was distracted his car key’s fell down on the trunk just bellow the monitor cables and he closed the car’s trunk pushing the cables against the car key and so closing the car doors, it was almost a Monty Python Movie, so there he is, stucked at the UFO with is PC, the only monitor and the car keys closed inside the car .
It was getting dark when all this happened, and to culminate everything it was his wife’s birthday. He could not get a lift since his wife doesn’t drive so he had to spend the night at the UFO with not even a monitor to do some astronomy or to navigate the net We believe he hadn’t bought a gift for his wife so he just got himself on that situation on purpose 
But back on M13, below you can find the result of a few nights imaging this mighty Globular Cluster on Hercules (the brightest in the northern hemisphere), it is about 145 light years in diameter and it is composed of several hundred thousand stars. M13 is about 25.100 Light Years away from us. It was first discovered by Edmond Halley in 1764.
´
15:54
Messier15 and NGC891 – A Busy Weekend at UFO
Another Busy Weekend at UFO – It’s nice to be on vacation, althought at this rithm and don’t think I’ll manage to get a tan .
After doing the White Rose Cluster on Friday I decided to go double on Saturday and Sunday with 2 more objects, one on the begining of both nights (M15) and the other in the middle of them (NGC891) it took two nights untill around 05:00 am on Saturday and on Sunday to came to the result below:
Messier 15:
M15 is a Globular Cluster in Pegasus, it is rather old 13.2 Billion Years (American ones) and is one of the oldest globular clusters known. It is 33.600 Ligh Years from us (just next door )
In my photo unfortunately the core got saturated, but I think it came out decent anyway:
Capture Details:
NP101 + Atik 16HR + Atik Filter Wheel with Astronomik LRGB Set
L – 21X300”
R + G – 15X150”
B – 15X180”
NGC891:
An edge-on Galaxy 30 million Light Years Away (now that’s far!) in Andromeda. This galaxy was discovered by William Herschel in 1784. In the photo below you can also see many more galaxies that show how big this Universe is, the image field is around 50 arc minutes (if you stretch you’re hands it occupies around half a little finger wide).
Capture Details:
NP101 + Atik 16HR + Atik Filter Wheel with Astronomik LRGB Set
L – 21X600”
R + G – 12X150”
B – 10X180”
15:08
The White Rose Cluster – Atik Filter Wheel 1st Light
Friday was a busy night at UFO, me, Fernando Delgado and Hugo Silva met over skype and spent the night imaging the heavens. The night started a bit turbulent but as the hours gone by it became a very stable night.
I wanted to see how the Atik Filter Wheel was working so decided to image an open cluster NGC7789 – A cluster first discovered in 1783 by William Herschel’s Sister Caroline. It is also known as “The White Rose Cluster” because when seen visually the loop of stars look like rose petals seen from above.
Object Details:
Apparent Dimension – 16′
Calculated Distance – 7600 LY
Apparent Magnitude – 6.7
Number of Stars – 300
Constellation – Cassiopeia
Capture Details:
NP101 + Atik 16HR + Atik Filter Wheel with Astronomik LRGB Set
L – 20X300”
R + G – 15X150”
B – 15X180”