These photographs, text and web page designs are © Copyright 1997 - 2024
Emmanuele Sordini, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved.
Contents may not be reproduced, published, copied or transmitted in any form, including electronically, without written permission of the author.

Tutti i contenuti (fotografie, testi e design del sito) © Copyright 1997 - 2023
Emmanuele Sordini, se non diversamente specificato. Tutti i diritti riservati.
I contenuti non possono essere riprodotti, pubblicati, copiati o trasmessi sotto alcuna forma, incluso per via elettronica, senza il permesso scritto dell\'autore.

Author Archives: emmanuele-sordini

International Astronomical Youth Camp (IAYC) 2008

From July 20th to August 9th, 2008, the 44th IAYC (International Astronomical Youth Camp) will take place in Sayda, Germany. I myself took part in these camps six times between 1991 and 1999, and in my opinion there is no better place where one can find such an ideal and balanced mix between science, friendship and amusement. The editions I participated in account for some of my nicest memories in my life. So, I am more than glad to put […]

By Emmanuele Sordini Astronomy: news 24 April 2008 0

Saturn and its companions

On March 18th, 2008, the weather was once again clear, but the Foehn wind was sweeping Northern Italys flatland, as it has (too) often happened during this past winter. No surprise the seeing was really crappy. In spite of that, I managed to pull off the following image featuring Saturn roaming the heavens with five of its satellites! The satellites in the above picture are numbered as follows (verified with WinJupos): 1, Japetus; 2, Rhea; 3, Tethys; 4, Dione; 5, […]

By Emmanuele Sordini Astronomy: website and activity updates 9 April 2008 0

Magzero MZ-5m vs modified Vesta Pro

by Emmanuele Sordini and Lorenzo Comolli The MagZero MZ-5m camera, the Italian flavor of the QHY5 CCD guider, has been around for quite a while, and has ever since been quite popular among amateur astronomers as a good bang for the buck. This camera has already been reviewed on bloomingstars.com: back then, we highlighted its streghts, such as its lightweight as ease of use (thanks to the built-in ST4 compatible interface; this time, we do a side-by-side comparison of sensitivity and […]

By Emmanuele Sordini Astronomy: reviews 24 March 2008 0

Moonset over Mottarone

On Jan.24, 2008, another crystal-clear day had just started, when I spotted a waxing, almost-full Moon setting over the snow-covered slopes of the Mottarone, a well-known mountain (and ski resort) overhanging Stresa, renowned touristic resort on the western banks of Lago Maggiore. In no time, I was out on my balcony shooting a sequence of exposures which I later put together into the animated GIF “movie” shown above.

By Emmanuele Sordini Astronomy: website and activity updates 19 February 2008 0

2008’s First Full Moon

On Jan. 22, 2008, it was a crystal-clear night on the Po river flatland (Northern Italy), as the dry foehn wind was blowing steadily from the Alps’ leeward slopes, thus draining every single bit of humidity from the air. A full Moon disk was also shining bright high up in the sky. By no means, would I ever miss this terrific opportunity of shooting it… So, I grabbed my ‘scope (Vixen ED103SWT), slammed it on my G11 mount along with […]

By Emmanuele Sordini Astronomy: website and activity updates 29 January 2008 0

The Magzero MZ-5m Camera: autoguiding on a budget

One of the most-feared bugaboos for those who take up long-exposure digital imaging is getting nice round stars, as a result of good-quality autoguiding. To this end, there are several options available on the market: however, they are mostly dedicated devices (e.g. self-guiding cameras from Sbig, or Starlight Xpress’ SXV Guider ), or very powerful but pricey products (as is the case with the STV from Sbig), or even newcomers which still have to conquer their customer base (e.g. the […]

By Emmanuele Sordini Astronomy: reviews 30 December 2007 0

Two new images

It’s been quite a while since my last post, let alone an astronomy-related one. However, this does not mean I don’t have anything to share! As a matter of fact, I do have a fair backlog of images to process and to post, but it’ll take a while as I’ve been very busy lately. Here’s a sample of my october 2007 deep-sky imaging session (NGC 253, a galaxy in Sculptor): which is actually my best result of that night… Click […]

By Emmanuele Sordini Astronomy: website and activity updates 4 December 2007 0

JUG Genova Meeting, 18/09/2007

Last September 18th, 2007, another JUG Genova meeting was held at DIST (Dipartimento di Informatica, Sistemistica e Telematica) of the University of Genova. It featured a very interesting presentation by Carlo Bonamico and Corrado Alesso on the Spring framework.

By Emmanuele Sordini Computing 18 September 2007 0

Nine objects of desire?

“Nine objects of desire” is a title of an album by one of my favorite singers, Suzanne Vega. However, in this case the term “round-up” would probably be more appropriate. No matter what you call it, to me it’s a nice set of deep-sky objects:

By Emmanuele Sordini Senza categoria 14 September 2007 0

My first crack at CCD image processing

In early August I tried my hand at my newly acquired CCD camera, and above all at manipulating the resulting image. This small report describes all my different attempts to yield the best rendition of M20 (Trifid nebula)’s wispy outer regions. Here’s what I consider my best result yet:

By Emmanuele Sordini Astronomy: website and activity updates 26 August 2007 0

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These photographs, text and web page designs are © Copyright 1997 - 2024
Emmanuele Sordini, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved.
Contents may not be reproduced, published, copied or transmitted in any form, including electronically, without written permission of the author.
Tutti i contenuti (fotografie, testi e design del sito) © Copyright 1997 - 2023
Emmanuele Sordini, se non diversamente specificato. Tutti i diritti riservati.
I contenuti non possono essere riprodotti, pubblicati, copiati o trasmessi sotto alcuna forma, incluso per via elettronica, senza il permesso scritto dell'autore.