Archive for March, 2016

11 results.

Jupiter 20160326

Mar27
by catz on March 27, 2016 at 08:45
Posted In: astronomy

Jup_20160326_025555_castr_g3_ap21r2.png-annotated

Very good imaging run last night (Friday 2016 March 25) of Jupiter with the 20cm f10 with x2 barlow, asi120mc camera.

The run went either side of Jupiter zenith, but the almost full moon was up interfering with transparency.
Seeing was good, transparency was good but getting worse.
Exposure was 33ms, runs were 90 seconds.
GRS was on the other side of the planet .. again! It’s been months since I’ve seen it.

Initially seeing was so good, I did not need to use software alignment. It was very steady. But software alignment is always a good plan so I used it the rest of the night.

After the initial 20 imaging runs, I switch capture software to the beta version, and that did not go well at all. After the next 20 I switch back to the stable version of firecapture.

The last few images were 120, 180 and 240 seconds. They actually turned out worse than the ones below as Jupiter itself rotates so much in that time that the features start to blur.
90 seconds seems to be the most with f20 imaging.

Another mistake was to install registax on a new computer. I tried to copy over the custom wavelet settings, but after processing all 42 runs, they were all horrible. Back to the original system, program and settings and they all turned out very well.

Below is the animated .GIG of the run from start to finish, 02:20 to 04:12 UT
.GIFs only show 256 colours but it does not seem to matter too much. The .MPG file is heavily compressed and animated but I can’t figure out how to introduce a slower playback FPS so one can actually see changes better.

jupiter20160326_0412

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Saturn 20160319

Mar20
by catz on March 20, 2016 at 09:04 and modified on March 20, 2016. at 09:06
Posted In: astronomy

Possibly the best images of Saturn to date as well.
Early Saturday morning, 7 imaging runs before it got too bright, from 06:23 to 06:31 EDT (10:23 to 10:31 UT)
20cm Meade LX200GPS f20 with x2 celestron barlow alt az mounted, zwo asi120mc camera, dew shield, dew heater.
Sat_20160319_103047_castr_g3_ap21r.png-annotated

saturn

Again, not enough time to show any rotation. The Cassini division shows up nicely.
Saturn was 17 arcseconds large, 40arcseconds with the rings. Azimuth was 182 degrees, just past due south and zenith and altitude was 24 degrees… very low!

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Mars 20160319

Mar20
by catz on March 20, 2016 at 09:01 and modified on March 20, 2016. at 09:07
Posted In: life the universe and everything

After a late night of imaging Jupiter, I was up early on Saturday morning with a coffee, brain not yet engaged, when I looked outside to see it still dark and clear skies!
Mars! Out I go to get i na few imaging runs before it got too bright. These were taken Saturday morning 2016 March 19th from 06:35 to 06:39 EDT (10″35 to 10:39 UT)
Mars_20160319_103506_castr_g3_ap19r.png-annotated
None are spectacular by any means, but they are probably the best to date as well.
Mars is 10″ arcseconds large; 2649 frames were capture at 11ms exposures over 30 seconds.
Nine images were taken like that and the last one for 60 seconds. The best 75% of the images were stacked and processed.

20cm Meade LX200GPS f20 with x2 celestron barlow alt az mounted, zwo asi120mc camera, dew shield, dew heater.

The animation below shows 10 images over 5 minutes or so, not really enough to show any rotation.mars

azimuth was 196 degrees, past due south and zenith and altitude was 24 degrees, very low and in lots of atmospheric muck.

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Jupiter 20160319

Mar20
by catz on March 20, 2016 at 08:55 and modified on March 20, 2016. at 09:02
Posted In: astronomy

Possibly the best imaging runs of Jupiter to date. clear skies, -8C temp, and Jupiter near zenith.
Started imaging at 20:53EDT on Friday evening 2016 March 18 and ended around 23:32 EDT as I was totally falling asleep.
This was one of the best images of Jupiter taken at 23:30 EDT (03:30 UT March 19Jup_20160319_033046_castr_g3_ap21r.png-annotated)
Jupiter is 44 arcseconds large, exposures were 33ms over 90 seconds giving 2664 frames, of which the best 75% were used to generate this image.
When I packed it in for the night Jupiter was at az 156 deg (not quite zenith, due south, 180 deg) and 49 deg altitude, about the best it will get.
There was also an 83% phase moon nearby, not helping in the least. What haze there was in these average seeing, average transparency skies were lit up by it.

The Great Red Spot was not on the visible side and all of the moons were some distance away.
53 imaging runs in total (with a few thrown out due to bad tracking) comprise the .gif animation seen below. Time to try a few more at zenith and then move on to larger telescopes.

animation on 2016 March 19 from 01:53 to 03:33 UT, 53 images in total

animation on 2016 March 19 from 01:53 to 03:33 UT, 53 images in total

20cm Meade LX200GPS f20 with x2 celestron barlow alt az mounted, zwo asi120mc camera, dew shield, dew heater.

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Mars & Saturn 20160317

Mar18
by catz on March 18, 2016 at 14:14 and modified on March 18, 2016. at 14:14
Posted In: astronomy
Mars 20cm f20 on 20160317 at 09:34UT

Mars 20cm f20 on 20160317 at 09:34UT

It cleared up unexpectedly this morning (Thursday 2016 March 17th) so a quick imaging run of Mars (very near beta scorpii) and Saturn.
Both were horrible as even though near zenith, Mars is very low to the horizon. Saturn moreso in the Kingston Light Pollution Dome.

Saturn 20cm f20 on 20160317 at 09:45UT

Saturn 20cm f20 on 20160317 at 09:45UT

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Even more conservation

Mar14
by catz on March 14, 2016 at 08:47 and modified on March 21, 2016. at 11:09
Posted In: alternative power, life the universe and everything

kingstonssd120
Our electricity rates in Ontario I believe are the highest in Canada.
We use time of day with 8.3; 12.8 and 17.5 cents/kwh at offpeak, midpeak and onpeak demand.
The problem is, that is only 50% of the price.. delivery and other charges double that to
16.6, 25.6 and 35 cents/kwh.
This breaks down as 12 hours of offpeak, 6 hours of midpeak and 6 hours of onpeak, average out as 23.5 cents/kwh (12*16.6+6*25.6+6*35=663/24=23.5) for 24 hour use for weekdays.
Weekends are all offpeak, so 16.6 cents/kwh
For 1 week it would average out to ((16.6*2)+(23.5*5))/7 = 22 cents/kwh

1 hour = $0.22
1 day = 0.22*24=$5.28
1 month = 0.22*24*30= $158
1 year = 0.22*24*365 = $1,927

Every bill that comes through the door says to conserve! change your ways! replace your incandescent bulbs! Do dishes and laundry in off peak times!
Well, we do all of that, and have done all of that for 15 years. And the advice does not change.

So, incrementally we find other ways to conserve more. This weekend an old fluorescent light (that did not work very well… lots of flickering and 5-10 second time to on) was replaced with a 16′ LED rope light that we mounted around the inside frame of the pantry. It takes 3 watts! The old Fluoro was at least 40 watts. That will help a tiny bit. Not that much as the light is not on a lot. Maybe 1 hour/month

We also replaced a spinning hard drive in a computer that is always on with a solid state drive (SSD).
The spinning drive takes approx 10 watts when in use or idling. The SSD takes approx 0.2 watts.
The computer logs data 24/365 so in total that drive would use 10watts*24*365=87.6watthour=0.09kwh in a year.
That would cost $1927/kwh*0.09kwh= approx $173/year

In addition we have been slowly replacing compact fluorescent bulbs around the house with LED bulbs. A couple of reasons for this. The old CF often take a lot of time (1-2 minutes) to come up to full brightness. They also put out Radio Frequency Interference… a bad thing for our radio telescopes and SID systems.
The LED bulbs also use less power than the CFs.
One day we will put the killawatt meter on both and calculate out the differences.

The last big idea is to replace some of these data logging computers (that still take approx 50w) with smaller more energy efficient raspberry pi systems (maybe 2 watts).
50w/hour=0.05kwh/hour * 24 hours * 365 = 438 kwh/year * average price of $0.22 kwh = $1927*0.4= $423 per year

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Daylight Saving Time is a bad idea

Mar14
by catz on March 14, 2016 at 08:25
Posted In: life the universe and everything

daylight-saving-time1-290x300
Another semi-annual rant against changing time. It is amazing how much inertia this has… created to save energy costs 100 years ago and people still think it is applicable and useful today. It is not.
Keep the time on standard time. Saskatchewan and a dozen other Canadian areas do it. There are no issues. There are certainly:
no increased risk of heart attacks the day after; no increased risk of traffic accidents; no increased risk of workplace injury.
For all those who want more daylight in the evening, there are those that prefer it in the morning. Who works 9-5 anymore?

Even in this day and age, the majority of our clocks require manual reset. At least the computers are working for the most part.

arrgg.

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Jupiter 20160312

Mar12
by catz on March 12, 2016 at 11:22 and modified on March 12, 2016. at 11:49
Posted In: astronomy

Jup_20160312_033024_castr_g3_ap22r-alt51.png-annotatedThe first nice clear, nottocold night in a long time… too bad I could not stay awake any longer than I did… the last images were the best!

Seeing was poor to average, transparency was average.

The imaging ran from 20:46 EST to 23:30 EST on March 11 or in UT 00:46 to 03:30 March 12.
The first images were the worst, due to the low altitude of 32 degrees above the horizon. At some point I will set a minimum level and not even bother to image below that because these images are mostly useless.
After each 90 second exposure, 210 seconds delay were introduced to get a 5 minute cycle.

The last image was at 51 degrees altitude and was the best of the run. If only I could have stayed up another 90 minutes… would have been great!

Again the equipment was a 20cm lx200gps f10 (2003) that I do not think is tracking very well. Will have to talk to others about it. The field of view was 512×512 pixels and Jupiter was 44 arcseconds large… so the scope drifted by 44 arcseconds? at times? You could not leave it for more than 30 seconds. And it did have two runaways where the exposure had to be stopped, the ROI increased back up to maximum 1280×960 to locate the planet and recentre it, then shrink the ROI back down and reexpose.
jupiter20160312_0330

The image annotations were tweaked a little for this run. Image exposures ran from 46ms at the start to 33ms at the end, reflecting the atmospheric extinction. No Great Red Spot but there were some nice ovals in the south.

Focussing remains a huge challenge. After the first image run, I removed the camera, put in a 40mm eyepiece (4000/40=x100) and then a 20mm superplossl (4000/20=x200) and redid the coarse focus. Then the camera went in (slightly offset from before) and used the microfocuser and handyavi stepped numerical display to get the best focus I could estimate.

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Jupiter 2016 March 08

Mar09
by catz on March 9, 2016 at 06:37 and modified on March 9, 2016. at 06:47
Posted In: astronomy

Jupiter 2016 March 08 at 01:11UT with Io and Europa transsiting

Jupiter 2016 March 08 at 01:11UT with Io and Europa transsiting

The skies cleared unexpectedly Monday evening, with clouds all around and threatening to move in, So I bounced outside to open the observatory and start a quick imaging run. That turned into 80 minutes of images across 30 runs.
The observatory can be opened and an imaging run started in under 2 minutes now. Very good for targets of opportunity.
The LX200GPS handpaddle (2003) continues to come indoors when not in use to stay warm and has been working much better.
The shorter dew shield is working, keeping the dew off the optics as well as when it was another 2″ longer.
The dew heater strap on the corrector plate is still working well. I’ve ramped down to about 50% duty cycle on a regular night.
animated .gif of Jupiter 2016 March 08 from 00:28 to 01:48 UT a frame every 3 minutes

animated .gif of Jupiter 2016 March 08 from 00:28 to 01:48 UT a frame every 3 minutes


Jupiter was extremely low to the horizon, starting at 27 deg altitude) and seeing was much worse than poor. The session ended at about 39 degrees. Exposures started at 100ms, much higher than the normal zenith 35ms. A lot of atmospheric extinction going on there. By the end of the 80 minute run, exposures had to be dropped down to 70ms.
These images were produced from the best 25% of the frame, each about 1000-1500 frames originally.

The big surprise! Karma! Payback! was the unexpected double moon transit or Europa (on the right) and Io (on the left).
I was totally unaware of this event, concentrating instead more on the shadow transits, which for our location tend to occur during daytime working hours.

The remote control using handyavi telescope interface worked well with 3 or 4 exceptions. The telescope would run away from the target in slow motion and I would have to abort the imaging and recenter Jupiter. Not sure why this is happening, but being indoors beats the heck out of sitting outside in the cold for 2 hours.

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Saturn 2016 March 06

Mar06
by catz on March 6, 2016 at 14:06 and modified on March 7, 2016. at 09:03
Posted In: astronomy
Saturn 20160306 11:01 UT

Saturn 20160306 11:01 UT

Another clear patch forecast for this morning and presto chango! it was kinda not too bad clear.
poor seeing and poor transparency.

At 05:00 this morning it was already well into twilight.
Had issues trying to find the *7#$% % planet. Saw a bright light in the sky, saw the telescope was a few degrees away, so moved it, put in an eyepiece and hunted for 10 minutes without finding it. Told the scope to go back to where it thought it was and it turned out to be almost in the FOV. Much dimmer than I thought.
exposures were up in the 100-125ms range, giving only 8-10 FPS. Saturn was 23 degrees up so there was a lot of air in the way.

This was a 90 second run using the best 50% of the images (after inspecting the best 15%, 25% and 75% ones as well).
The Cassini Division shows up well but little to no surface features.. maybe a couple of belts.
The planet shadow appears on the rings in back.
Saturn is at opposition in June… can’t wait for that!

Saturn 20160306 11:01 UT

Saturn 20160306 11:01 UT

Saturn is 17 arcseconds big, 39 with the rings.

A reminder that Jupiter opposition is over the next few days… and what do we have in forecast? cloud and rain!
Tuesday has a small chance but nothing good until Thursday – Sunday. Still, close enough to opposition to get the best possible images.

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Jupiter 20160304

Mar06
by catz on March 6, 2016 at 10:29 and modified on March 6, 2016. at 10:31
Posted In: astronomy
Jupiter 20160304

Jupiter 20160304

Friday evening 2016 March 4th, showed the firstclear sky promise in a long time.. with several days earlier this week promising but not delivering. Tonight it delivered. Was not to cloud over until 01:00 but the clouds came early… around 22:00

Another successful remote session, inside from the comfort of the fire.
37 runs of 60 and 90 seconds from around 20:00 to 22:22 EST with Jupiter barely clearing the horizon (maybe 20 deg altitude).
Tried to use a focussing mask (two hole) but that did not work out.
Tried to x5 the exposure and find a moon and focus on it.. that did not work out.
Ended up with a lot of back and forth focus on the preview image and did the best that I could.

This was the first night using the new, shorter dew shield (was running into the wall when slewing, probably still will just not as much). Nine year old Laptop with memory upgrades to 4GB and 240GB SSD as well. Saving images to local drive instead of across network. it worked as well! No USB glitches.

Jupiter was 44.4 arc seconds large, 2368 frames were captured and the best 25% were used to make this image. The original .avi filesize was 1.8GB
The captured Region of Interest was 516×512 pixels from the ZWO ASI 120MC max size of 1280×960.
Using a smaller ROI gives a faster Frames per Second and a smaller file size to content with.

Below is the animated .gif compilation of the nights image runs.
jupiter

The seeing got better through the 2.5 hours, as Jupiter rose in the sky and we were looking through less air. Seeing and transparency were both poor. The Great Red Spot had just existed right and would not be back until well into the morning. one of these days I will get it on the front face again!

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