Archive for August, 2020

5 results.

Jupiter 2020 August 16 UTC

Aug17
by catz on August 17, 2020 at 08:37
Posted In: astronomy

Greetings!

Saturday night was imaging Jupiter with:

a) cleaned optics (camera window, barlow)

b) removed 90 deg adapter (gaining 10-20% in exposure times due to one less 80-90% reflective surface) AND one less Yaxis flip!

c) the x2.5 barlow (previous attempts have been x1.5 and x2

The Hartmann mask was used to focus on Vega, then moved to Jupiter for imaging.

Images runs were 120 second and exposure times were better than the 100ms the past few days, down to 90 and even 86ms.

These are the best 20% of the 1395 frames taken.

I’ve attempted to add the GIMP to the image workflow: black point, filter enhance highpass, filter enhance despeckle and colour saturation, but I can’t say any of these worked for me at all.

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Jupiter 2020 Aug 14 UTC

Aug17
by catz on August 17, 2020 at 08:36
Posted In: astronomy

>> Jupiter satellite events from project pluto
>> I = IO
> II = EUROPA
> III = GANYMEDE
> UTC-4 hours=EDT
>
> II : Tra start: 14 Aug 2020 11:36
> II : Sha start: 14 Aug 2020 13:03
> II : Tra end : 14 Aug 2020 14:23
> II : Sha end : 14 Aug 2020 15:52
> III: Tra start: 14 Aug 2020 23:30
>
> 22:30 EDT
> III: Sha start: 15 Aug 2020 2:30
> III: Tra end : 15 Aug 2020 2:51
> I : Tra start: 15 Aug 2020 3:23
> 00:08 EDT
> I : Sha start: 15 Aug 2020 4:08
> I : Tra end : 15 Aug 2020 5:40
> III: Sha end : 15 Aug 2020 5:54
> 01:54 EDT

This is an image of the shadow of the moon Ganymede (top left) and you can barely make out the moon itself leaving transit on the limb (right a little above middle).

I successfully used the two holer (hartman mask). I focused by eye first on Arcturus then used the mask and did see two distinct images, adjusted the focus until it was a good as possible, then removed the mask and slewed to Jupiter. I had tried using the mask on Jupiter but as a nonpoint source, it did not work at all.

Tracking was problematic and I had to manually guide the expos

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Jupiter Saturn 2020 Aug 13 UTC

Aug17
by catz on August 17, 2020 at 08:35
Posted In: astronomy

Another night of developing imaging workflow for the Meade 102mm SC. Tonight was with a x2 barlow, taking it from FL=1000mm to 2000mm.

This small Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope has only a small coarse focus knob to move the primary mirror in and out.

That combined with a x2 barlow, cut down the exposure times by x4, meaning every time you touch the focus knob, everything shakes and blurs and does not settle down for a few seconds.

So, focus was not the best. After last nights RASCKC weekly chat, I expect everyone to be out making Hartmann masks today… I know I did 🙂

This is the last or 2nd last image of the night, before I switched over to Saturn.

Jupiter was 21 deg alt, with a diameter of 46 arcsec. The Great Red Spot was appearing… I did not see that at all in the raw imaging. North is up.

I hope tonight will see a noticeable improvement in the initial focus… that helps all the way down the processing/ workflow chain.

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Jupiter 2020Aug12 02:48-03:14UTC

Aug12
by catz on August 12, 2020 at 10:48 and modified on August 12, 2020. at 10:51
Posted In: astronomy

Imaging Jupiter last night during the Perseids, waiting for midnight to come for hopefully better and more meteor displays.

These are before and after Registax v6 wavelet processing, to show the power behind wavelets, and the fact that I still do not have what I consider ideal settings 🙁

Seeing was average

Transparency was good but got worse

Sky Quality Meter reading: 21.48 mag/arcsec^2

Meade LXD55 mount tracking below average

Meade 102mm SC F10 FL=1000mm plus a x1.5x barlow, effective FL=1500mm
No dew shield or dew heater on the Meade 102.
North is down (I normally do up)
Thesee are the best 50% of the images.

Start of run 02:48UTC

End of run 03:14 UTC

Before wavelets

After wavelets

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Perseids, Saturn, Jupiter and Sagittarius

Aug12
by catz on August 12, 2020 at 10:28
Posted In: astronomy

This is the only Perseid meteor captured on the DSLR camera, a 20 sec exposures of the southern sky last night, just after setting up no less! This one is from 22:06 EDT. I’m finding the sweet spot for the Canon T7i to be ISO3200 for saturation, and shorter exposures for less star trailing (no tracking).

Saturn Jupiter and Sagittarius and the Milky Way were the targets of about 150 images before the lens dewed over around 23:06 EDT

We packed up the camera gear and observed with eyeballs from 00:10-01:00.

Our counts were between 10-20 for that time, over half being Perseids, the remainder sporadics.

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