Arwen's meanderings

Hi everyone and welcome to my dinghy cruising blog about my John Welsford designed 'navigator' named Arwen. Built over three years, Arwen was launched in August 2007. She is a standing lug yawl 14' 6" in length. This blog records our dinghy cruising voyages together around the coastal waters of SW England.
Arwen has an associated YouTube channel so visit www.YouTube.com/c/plymouthwelshboy to find our most recent cruises and click subscribe.
On this blog you will find posts about dinghy cruising locations, accounts of our voyages, maintenance tips and 'How to's' ranging from rigging standing lug sails and building galley boxes to using 'anchor buddies' and creating 'pilotage notes'. I hope you find something that inspires you to get out on the water in your boat. Drop us a comment and happy sailing.
Steve and Arwen

Saturday, 4 March 2023

beginning astrophotography

 Occasionally non boat blogs appear here. Today is one such occasion. Regular readers will know that over the last 18 months or so I have taken up Astrophotography and Astronomy. Its been fun, fascinating and frustrating, often at the same time! 

Anyway, here are some recent images I have taken over the last few months. Acquiring the image data is the easy bit. Post processing it is indeed a dark art, one I rank almost as higher dark art as that of sail trimming! 

Enjoy.

Andromeda galaxy, one of our nearest neighbours

A recent visitor to our galactic neighbourhood and not due back for another 50,000 years 
Comet 2023 ETF Z3 

The Leo triplet of galaxies 

M45 Pleiades 

The Pinwheel galaxy

M42 Orion Nebula 

The Horsehead nebula 

My latest effort - The Rosette nebula in the bottom right with the Cone nebula in upper left and the yellow Trumpler 5 in upper middle


If you use the search bar or look back through the blog post list on this home page - you will find other blogs about astronomy and astrophotography. 
For those interested, the equipment I used is as follows: 

  • Canon 800D non modded DSLR
  • Samyang 135 mm F/2
  • Canon 50mm F/1.8
  • William Optics Zenithstar 61ii small refractor telescope
  • William Optics Wedge
  • SkyWatcher Star Adventurer 2i star tracker 
  • Benro carbon fibre tripod
  • Skywatcher stainless steel tripod
And for basic astronomy
  • Skywatcher Discovery 150i WIFI GOTO refractor telescope 
  • Skywatcher 12v powerbank