Looking back at my Flickr, I see the last time I got creative with a camera was way, way back in April. My newly restored interest in Astronomy and the construction of a new Observatory has been taking up most of my time - to the detriment of anything terrestrial. I’m hoping that a trip up to Manchester this weekend for a Flickr trundle, will kick start things and I’m able to get back into taking piccys on a regular basis. Like most blokes, it’s difficult to run two major interests at the same time, without my enthusiasm taking control and only being able to concentrate on just one at a time - women and multitasking will no doubt be pointed out to me :-)

This will be my fourth trip to Manchester and my first during the Summer season. I’m really looking forward to being able to concentrate on the detail rather than being overwhelmed by the ‘Wow’ factor from all that Concrete, Steel and Shiny glass. For a change I’ll be taking the Nikon digital, but the Polaroid Button and a shedload of IP film packs will keep me fed for that ‘filmy fix’.

Unlike deep sky imaging where exposures tend to run into hours, the Moon can normally be captured in a matter of seconds. While this composite of seven webcam video files took a total of about 30 minutes to capture, it was possible to do each section in between banks of cloud rolling in the from the West. Unfortunately full cloud cover took hold before the last three sections could be captured. Nevertheless it was worthwhile processing the mosaic without being complete and I’m quite happy wit the degree of detail the processing software has able to capture. Further details on the equipment used and the method of processing can be found here.

I got hooked on Astronomy in 2001, which four years later resulted in the building of my own permanent observatory - the DBO - in 2005. After an initial burst of activity resulting in a couple of dozen images, there seemed to be a period of a couple of years where the observatory was permanently covered in cloud. So much in fact that, I lost all interest in taking astronomical images, for something more terrestrial and creative.

A trip to the annual Winchester weekend organised by the British Astronomical Association, has reignited my enthusiasm again. I also have opportunity to rebuild the observatory at a new dark field site, well away from the light pollution from the ‘Big Smoke’ of Truro. While lousy cloud cover could still thwart deep sky photography, I hope there are enough breaks in the cloud to do some Lunar Observing and webcam imaging of its features.

To kick off the imaging side, the image above is Sunspot 1193 taken through my TMB 80mm Refractor. I took four x 2000 frame webcam video files, which were processed in Registax 6 and combined in Photoshop CS5. Further image details can be found in the Solar section of my website.

Spring has arrived in Cornwall with a vengeance. The Daffodils are all out and the Primroses are emerging from the hedgerows. The last few weeks have been spent with the iphone - far too long for my liking, so it was good to get out to Five lanes this weekend with the Pentax 6x7. Five Lanes has been my favourite ‘Big Space’ location for years and I love to see how the landscape changes with the seasons. A selection of images can be found here.

Woke up this morning to some pretty thick fog. Why don’t we ever get these conditions when I would have the time to take the Bronica out, so as work got in the way, I had to live with the iphone and my fave new Claunch Film and John S lens combo.