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Introduction - About Myself

Hi, Welcome to Pete's Astronomy. My location is Vanderbijlpark South Africa (Lat 26 41' 55"S Lon 27 49' 0"E). Not the best location for astronomy due to extream light pollution. This adds a challenge. Being a retired fellow I also find astronomy a very rewarding hobby which allows for ample mental and physical stimulation, essential for a healthy life.

Apart from the obvious, my interests also include high voltage Tesla coils, radio meteors, NOAA low polar orbiting satellites image reception, general outdoor activities like fishing, walking and wild game viewing. Prior to retiring I was a process engineer with a large petrochemical company.

These pages are intended as a source of general interest and information for the low tech astronomer and will be updated periodically. For the DIY enthusiast check out the adobe pdf files

Chat Update

New Images - 7 January 2012

Had a few good sessions with lower light pollution than usual. Especially the HorseHead and Flame nebula. Got up 1AM in the morning and saw clear skies with little or no sky glow. Could not resist the temptation

Jupiter - 27 November 2011

Took an AVI of Jupiter with the Canon 1000d and EOS Movie Recorder. Noticable is the re-apprearance a cloud band that disappeared in 2010. See Planets _Moon section. The Nov 2011 image is a lot better. Took more care in processing, plus more experience.

Galaxies in Sculptor October 2011

Some of the objects recently observed are NGC55, NGC300 and NGC253 the Sculptor galaxy.

Sessions over 3 nights 20 Oct to 22 Oct with reasonable seeing conditions and hectic light pollution allowed me to captures images of a few of these objects. Refer to images in the Southern Delights section. NGC253 was imaged with a modified Canon 1000d and an unmodified 1100d. The larger 1100d images were reduced to 3888x2592 to match the 1000d size. A total of 41 images were stacked. Primary enhancement was done with StarTools 1.1.125 and tweeked in Photoshop CS3.

Cats Paw and Peace & War Nebula

After hearing that NGC6334 and NGC6357 were very difficult subjects under light polluted skies, I decided to try my luck. These images are in the Southern delights section. The images were processed with StarTools 1.1.122. The newly added "life" module makes the image come alive by enhancing the red. The original images were severely light polluted with the dreaded orange colour and with some vignetting.

"StarTools". The latest release 1.1.126 is just getting better and better.

Click on the StarTools link icon and find out more.

Anyone interested in a DIY modification of a Canon DSLR. Initially I was very apprehensive to do this myself but after visting Gary Honis web page and following the very detailed instructions I found this task quite easy. I had previously approached Canon here in RSA but they totally refused to do the mod. Could not find anyone , So decided to do it myself. All it takes is a bit of courage, a steady hand, a bit of patience and sit down and get on with it. I printed the html pages and placed the screws on the appropiate pictures, this made re-assembly a breeze. My only advice is to ensure that the sensor is clean and dust free when re-assmebling. I found a small dark blemish on my pics after the mod. Will have to open up and clean. Here is the webpage

http://ghonis2.ho8.com/rebelmod450d1.html