Welcome to Tim's Space Bits 
Space. Stars. The Universe !!
My interest began when I obtained a home made telescope, a 12" Newtonian Reflector, from my Dad. He himself "inherited" it from his neighbour.
That was a few years back and I still have to make or find a decent mount for the scope. At the moment it's just stuck into a concrete hole and has to be stabilised by hand, when viewing the heavens!
Space Pics
Below are just some of my examples of my attempts at astro photography.
Click on the thumbnails pics below for more detail....
 Moon Pics |
 Venus Pics |
 Mars Pics |
 Saturn Pics |
 Jupiter Pics |
 Deep Sky Pics |
 Wide Starfield Pics |
Space Diary
I don't live in a perfect local for star gazing. There's two great orange glow street lamps just outside my fence for starters!
I thought I'd start a diary of deepsky objects I've managed to locate. In date order to give me a clue what to look for next time :-)
1st Mar 2009
Comet Lulin
Spotted after a bit of time near the star Regulus in Leo. A coloured smudge!
Beehive cluster (M34).
This looks good through my spotting scope, halfway between Pollux and Regulux, but it's lost a bit with my 25mm eyepiece.
Saturn
Saturn looking like a small ball with a pin thru it. The planet is straight on to us at the moment, so the rings aren't disernable. It's moon Titan could be seen just off from the planet.
28th Feb 2009
M35 Open Cluster in Gemini
Easy to find off the foot of Caster. A few chains of stars makes it pretty impressive. (??ly,07/09/2004)
Venus
Looking like a mini half moon! Brilliant and dazzling.
Moon
Just beyond the toe nail stage!
8th Jan 2009
M31 Andromeda Galaxy in Andromeda
It was a big dull smudge on this nearly full moon night. (2.9mly,07/09/2004)
M103 Xmas Tree Open Cluster in Cassiopeia
This is a nice one. A triangle shaped cluster that
has a bright double star (non related) at the the top and
a distinctive red giant star near to the bottom left. (8kly,19/12/2004)
See my version here.
NGC 457 Owl Cluster, Dragonfly Cluster, or ET Cluster in Cassiopeia
This one is a nice one too. Easy to find. Appears upside down in my scope but fits well in my 25mm eyepiece FOV. (9kly)
NGC869 & NGC884 Open Clusters in Perseus
Nice wide field of view clusters easy to find using Cassiopeia as a pointer. (7.1-7.4kly,2004)
See my version here :-)
