Rob Masters

 These days I do most of my blog-type posting on aus.social, a Mastodon instance. Sometimes though the limited formatting makes that a poor choice. This is one such case. Today I want to take you through the post-processing steps I go through to create a final astrophotographic artwork. And these are artworks, not scientific records. I could  use the same data to perform astrometric observations, but I don't. I like to create beautiful images. Knowing the things I am creating pictures of is part of creating that beauty, and that does require some scientific knowledge, but it is only a means to an end.  So, let's start with what comes out of my telescope. I use either a DwarfII or Dwarf3 smart telescope for my imaging, and what comes out of that is already pre-processed in a variety of ways. The telescope does its own stacking, and has a built-in link to a cloud post processor. So what I get is two images - one denoised and with basic image optimisations performed, and ano...

On the night of New Year's Eve 2024 we (myself, Leece , and her mum) saw in the New Year by hosting a star party for family and friends. To make it as accessible as possible, we found a park in Como that is almost completely dark, despite being only a couple of kilometres from the CBD. Adjacent to this park is the Como Croquet Club, so we hired their clubhouse as a base of operations. Two days before, we got a panicked message from the club, asking if their members could have a gathering of their own - which was fine with us, as long as they did not want to turn on the field lights. So we had twenty odd people turn up, along with about the same number of Croquet Club members. As it turns out, the son of one of my workmates played in high school, and got his family into playing a game, much to the delight of the club members. Sun by Rob We started proceedings with a couple of shots of the sun and the current sunspots (Me: "This is what it looks like right now!" 16yo daught...

Last night we visited the Gravity Discovery Centre and Observatory in Gingin for one of their Observatory Tour nights. You get a full access ticket to the discovery Centre as a part of the tour ticket, so we made use of that to have a look around at the exhibits. The whole thing is a bit like a very focused SciTech or Powerhouse Museum sort of idea. The GDC at sunset, the Leaning Tower to the right, and the Lecture Dome and Giant Pendulum to the left We also collected the five solargraph cameras that we set up six months ago. Three of these were Solarcan Pucks, and two were home-brew can cameras. One of the Pucks was, alas, full of water, and the film was washed away. One of the can cameras was also heavily water filled, while the other had been partially crushed. The other two Pucks were in perfect condition. Six month solargraph of the giant pendulum, with the Leaning Tower in the background. What was unexpected was that both can cameras had acquired significant populations of tiny...

By way of Alicia Smith. For me, it is deeply moving - a look forward at looking back at an amazing first that is taking place right now . Originally shared by Friends of NASA Ambition: The Film [A Must See!] Ambition is a collaboration between Platige Image and the European Space Agency (ESA). Directed by Tomek Bagiński and starring Aiden Gillen and Aisling Franciosi, Ambition was shot on location in Iceland, and screened on October 24, 2014 during the British Film Institute’s celebration of "Sci-Fi: Days of Fear and Wonder", at the Southbank, London. Excellent work ESA and Platige Image! Rosetta: The ambition to turn science fiction into science fact: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta/Rosetta_the_ambition_to_turn_science_fiction_into_science_fact Credit & Copyright: ESA/Platige Image Duration: 6 minutes, 39 seconds Release Date: 24/10/2014 European Space Agency, ESA  #ESA #Space #Astronomy #Comet #Rosetta #Spacecraft #Water #Origins #...