Archive for the 'Planets' Category
January 9th, 2012 by Hersey
It has been a good little while since I have been out to do any imaging. I have not really been out much at all over the last few months. When I have been out it has just been for a quick look.
Friday night there was a clear sky and I was able to spend a couple hours observing and imaging a great red spot (GRS) transit of the planet Jupiter.
I was not feeling well and I had told myself if there were any issues with the equipment it was going to be an observing only night. Luckily everything worked out OK.
The moon was nearly full so I knew I would not have much luck with deep sky objects but I did have a quick look at M42 in Orion (still one of my favorites). It looked nice but a little washed out. The next target was the planet Uranus. I was not expecting to be able to see it very well and was surprised when it the blue/green disk appeared in the eyepiece.
At around 7:45 PM I moved to Jupiter and set up the Celestron NexImage Camera. Seeing was actually OK early on and I was quickly able to get decent focus. I took a couple of quick test shots and things looked pretty good.
Over the next hour or so I took a series of 1 minute video captures of Jupiter to record the transit of the Great Red Spot across the planets surface. The seeing declined considerably after 8:30 or so and the wind picked up. The images are still OK but the earlier images have a bit more detail. Still pretty neat seeing the disturbance in the southern equatorial band caused by the GRS.
The GRS is noted on the flickr page for this image which can be found here.
As the wind picked up and seeing declined I decided to take a couple quick shots of the moon. I have not taken the time to identify the features yet, but the pictures turned out nice.
Just after 10 PM I decided to call it a night. A great observing and imaging session, hopefully it will not be such a long wait for the next one.
April 6th, 2011 by Hersey
Here is an image Mary Shannon and I took of Saturn on Saturday, April 2, 2011. Seeing was pretty poor so it was hard to get focus, took several 120 second captures and this is the one that turned out the best with 130 usable frames. Tried to use a 3x barlow and then a 2x barlow but seeing was just not steady enough.
Despite the bad seeing I think this image turned out pretty nice.
Saturn – 04/02/2011
Backyard – Suffolk, VA
Scope: Celestron C8-SGT
Mount Celestron CG5-Goto
Camera: Celestron NexImage Solar System Imager
600 frames – 120 second AVI 5 fps – 130 frames stacked
Stacked using RegiStax V5
If you look close you can just make out the Cassini Division in the rings. Look closely at the rings to the left and right of the planet and you can just make out the dark divide. Looking forward to getting another try at Saturn in better seeing.
It was actually a pretty nice night despite the seeing being kind of shaky. Visually the planet looked awesome and we could see 4 of Saturn’s moons.
The sky was very dark and after a getting a few shots of Saturn we took a look at M65, M66, M81, and M82.
Nice night to be out looking at the stars.
September 21st, 2010 by Hersey
Saturday night I set up the 8″ SCT to get a look at Jupiter’s Great Red Spot (GRS). The GRS was predicted to transit the meridian of Jupiter at 11:05 PM EDT, and it would be visible for about 1 hour before that time and about 1 hour after that time. At about 10:15 PM we were able to see the GRS in the 16mm eyepiece – AWESOME! I hooked up the Orion Starshoot DSI II and began taking a series of 50 x 0.009 exposures. I took 10 of these 50 exposure sets from about 10:15 to 10:55 PM. Below are the processed images I captured at 10:55 PM.
First I combined the image using Maxim DL Essentials. I tried to stack the .FIT images in Registax but the software would not recognize the color. If I tried to force it to be a color image the results were either just a black background or a very dim green ball.
50 x 0.009 exposures with the Orion Starshoot DSI II combined using Maxim DL Essentials
The same image after adjusting the Wavelet settings in Registax 5.1
I did a bit of searching around the web and found several very helpful Registax Tutorials and I listed a couple of them that I found really helpful at the end of this post. I do not completely understand what these wavelet settings do, but adjusting them did make a great deal of difference in the amount of detail visible. This is one of my best shots yet! I am also going to revisit some of my other planet shots and reprocess to see what I can get from them.
I think I could probably bring out some more detail if I had more data. Next time I will try the web cam and take AVIs to stack.
These Registax tutorials were very helpful:
http://www.russsscope.net/staxtutorial.htm
http://www.astrotarp.com/Registax_basic_tutorial.html
August 30th, 2010 by Hersey
Date: 8/28/2010
Time: 9:45 PM – 12:00 AM EDT
Scope: Stellarvue 80BV
Mount: Celestron Advance CG5 GOTO
Eyepieces: 16mm Nagler, 7mm Nagler, 4mm Radian
Location: Backyard, Suffolk, VA
Weather: Warm, clear, humid.
Transparency: 4 Seeing: 6/7
Moon: Bright Waning Gibbous
Alignment Stars: Arcturus, Vega
Calibration Stars: Caph, Deneb
I knew the moon was going to be fairly bright, but I wanted to have a look at and maybe try to get an image or two of Jupiter. It was nice and clear, a bit warm, and very humid.
I recently picked up a 16mm Nagler on Astromart and was looking forward to giving it a try in the SV80BV – WOW! This will probably end up being my main eyepiece for this scope. Nice crisp views, sharp focus, just very nice. Since it is a 1.25″ eyepiece I stuck with all 1.25″ eyepieces so I did not have to keep switching out the 2″-1.25″ adapter.
The notes in my log are not as I usually do them – Object: Description of what I see. This time they are a bit more free form, I guess I was just not feeling very structured during this session.
I tried to check out several Messier objects before moon rise, but even with the moon over the horizon the bright light from it still made a wash of the night sky. I did get a view or M27, M57, M13, and M15 but because of the bright moon light I was not able to see very much detail for any of these. M13 was very faint and I was not able to resolve and individual stars with either the 16mm or 7mm eyepieces. M27 looked like a faint bubble and showed no detail.
Jupiter was just awesome! Very clear and crisp in the 16mm and 7mm. Even very nice and sharp in the 4mm Radian. Lots of detail in the 4mm – one dark band and at least two visible lighter bands. The views through the eyepiece were just spectacular! The four Galilean moons of Jupiter were very bright and easy to spot. I could keep all of them in the FOV of the 16mm and 7mm eyepieces. (I made a rough sketch of their position in my log, I might scan it later)
I hooked up the Orion DSI II camera to the Televue 2x Powermate and took 100 exposures at 0.04 second and 100 exposures at 0.05 second. I was a bit out of focus on the second set so they are pretty much trash, but after stacking the 100/0.04 seconds I ended up with my best Jupiter image yet.
I ended the night with a look at M31, the Andromeda Galaxy. Even with the bright moon the galactic center was easy to find and looked very nice in the 16mm. With a darker sky I think this object will end up looking amazing with this eyepiece through this scope.
July 20th, 2010 by Hersey
Date: 7/18/2010
Time: 8:30 PM – 9:45 PM EDT
Scope: Stellarvue SV80BV FL: 750mm
Eye Pieces: 13mm Nagler, 9mm Nagler, 7mm Nagler, 4mm Radian
Mount: Stellarvue M1 Grab and Go Alt-azimuth
Location: Backyard, Suffolk, VA
Weather: Warm, low thin clouds, windy, cumulonimbus clouds and lightning to the northeast
Seeing: 4 Transparency: 4
Moon: 1st Quarter
The skies did not clear much over the weekend. Venus was very bright in the West on Sunday afternoon and could be spotted well before dark. I decided to set up the SV80 for a quick look. A thunder storm to the northeast was producing a lot of lightning so I decided to call it a night pretty early. Ended up viewing 3 planets, 2 of them well before dark.
From my observing notes:
Venus – Very bright and was easy to find even before the sun had set. Easy to see the phase at 9mm, 7mm, and 4mm. I think it is waxing since it appears there is more of the planet lit than in other recent observations. A purple halo was visible around the planet – not sure if this was because of the atmospheric conditions but if is not something I have noticed before. The halo was apparent in all eyepieces. The sharpest views of the planet were with the 9mm. The 7mm and 4mm views were not very sharp and showed a lot of wavy movement – similar image as looking down hot asphalt.
Moon – Very nice 1st quarter moon. Bright, white. Very sharp views with the 9mm and the 7mm. Some wavy turbulence could be seen at the edge with the 7mm but not bad at all with the 9mm. Very nice detail of craters and ridges at the line between dark and light. Sharpest most stable view with 9mm, the moon filled the FOV of this eyepiece very nice.
Saturn – Found Saturn well before dark in the 9mm eyepiece. Even before the sun went down I could make out the detail of the ring shadow on the planets surface. I was surprise to be able to see a single moon even before dark. Looked nice in the 7mm, but not as sharp. The 9mm was sharp and showed nice detail.
Mars – Not visible until dark. Orange disk in the 9mm. No other details visible. Tried to crank up the magnification with the 4mm but could not get a sharp image.
A satellite crossed nearly directly overhead (maybe a degree or 2 south of directly over head) at approximately 9:07 PM.
July 3rd, 2010 by Hersey
Date: 7/2/2010
Time: 8:30 PM – 11:45 PM EDT
Scope: Stellarvue SV80BV FL: 750mm
Eye Pieces: 22mm Panoptic, 9mm Nagler
Mount: Stellarvue M1 Grab and Go Alt-azimuth
Location: Northwest River Park, Chesapeake, VA
Weather: Cool and clear, a little humidity. A few passing clouds after 11:00 PM.
Moon: None
The Back Bay Amateur Astronomy club holds a monthly event called Skywatch at the Northwest River Park in southern Chesapeake. Sandy and I have been out there before to just look but this is the first time I have taken my own scope.
I have been trying to learn to better navigate the sky without using the GOTO computers on my CG5 mounts. I don’t have my mobile power worked out yet anyway so I figured this would be a good opportunity to do some star hopping using just a Skymap and a red dot finder. If I got totally lost or was not able to view anything there would be others there to help me get back on track or if I got totally frustrated with it there would be a number of other scopes to look through.
Sandy, Mary Shannon, and I loaded up the Xterra with the SV80BV, the M1 mount, a cooler with a few bottles of water, a couple of camp chairs, and the bug repellent. We arrived at the observing site in the equestrian area of NWR park at about 8:00 PM and set up. I have one cigarette lighter plug in the cargo area of the Xterra so I used that to power the dew heater controller.
I got everything set up and we waited for the sun to go down. Venus and Saturn were the first targets visible well before the sky was even dark. After that I started searching out globular clusters.
We had a really good time. I did not take a count but I would guess there were between 10 and 15 scopes set up – ranging in size from my 80mm refractor to Kent’s monster 25″ dob (the views of M13 through that thing are INCREDIBLE). I learned a lot about navigating the sky. Mary Shannon had a great time learning about the different constellations and stars. Both Mary Shannon and Sandy enjoyed looking through Ted’s 18″ Dobsonian that was set up next to us.
The Skywatch event is open to the public and if you get a chance you should check one out – the schedule is here. We are already looking forward to the next one.
From my observing notes:
Venus was very easy to spot well before dark. Though the scope you could easily see the phase of the planet using both the 22mm and the 9mm eye pieces. The phase is very similar to the gibbious moon phase (somewhere between the quarter phase and gibbious phase) I am not sure if it is waxing or waning. Because of the brightness it was actually hard to observe this as the sky became darker.
Saturn was beautiful as always. The shadow of the rings across the planets surface was very easy to resolve. It was approximately 9:10 PM when we were viewing it so the sky was not yet completely dark. I was only able to resolve the moon Titan.
Below are my two quick sketches I made in my log book of the phase of Venus and the location of Saturn’s moon Titan.
A BBAA member walked by (sorry I do not remember who) and said that Albireo would look good through my scope. He showed me where to look, and he was right. Albireo is a double star, it is the head of the constellation Cygnus. The double contains one larger blue star and a smaller gold/yellow star.
Messier 4 (M4) Very faint but it was easy to find by centering on Antares and slowly moving the scope to the west using the 22mm. The 9mm brought out more detail of the bright core and was able to resolve individual stars around the core.
Messier 80 (M80) Was also fairly easy to find by centering on Antares and slowly moving the scope up to about half way between Antares and Acrab (Beta Scorpii) in constellation Scorpius. It has a bright core, but I could not resolve individual stars to the core. Also tried with the 7mm Nagler.
Messier 57 (M57), the Ring Nebula, is found in the constellation Lyra about halfway between the stars Sheliak and Sulafat. M57 resolved as a fuzzy bluish thick walled bubble with the 9mm.
Messier 20 (M20), the Trifid Nebula, and Messier 21 (M21), an open cluster. This was one of my favorite targets of the night. Both M20 and M21 could be seen in the same FOV of the 9mm Nagler. I was able to resolve the dark lanes that separate the Trifid Nebula.
Mizar and Alcor is another double found in the handle of the Big Dipper. Mizar is a large blue star and Alcor is a much smaller blue star.
I did not note any specific details about these clusters. Basically a BBAA member (Ted) was calling these off and I was going looking for them. Messier 10 (M10), Messier 11 (M11), Messier 22 (M22), and Messier 15 (M15)
June 21st, 2010 by Hersey
Date: 6/19/2010
Time: 9:30 PM – 11:30 PM EDT
Scope: Celestron C6-SGT and Astro-Tech AT66
Eye Pieces: 22mm Panoptic, 9mm Nagler, 25mm Plossl, 32mm Plossl
Weather: Warm, Humid, Few Passing Clouds, Breezy, Bright patio lights from neighbors
Moon: 1st Quarter
Alignment Stars: Spica and Arcturus
Calibration Stars: Vega and Antares
Did not really plan out my session. Even though I had a nap earlier in the day I was still kind of tired from being out in the morning, but I did not want to let the clear sky go to waste.
From my observing notes:
Messier 13 – The Great Cluster in Hercules – M13 is a globular cluster located in the constellation Hercules, I had to work a bit to get good focus using the 9mm in the C6. Once I was able to get focus it was very easy to resolve the individual stars outside of the clusters center. Also, able to resolve well with the 22mm. Focus was easier to obtain with the 22mm. While focusing on M13 with the 9mm Nagler I did notice a “mirror shift”, this is the first time I have experienced this in any of my scopes (not saying it has not happened before, this is just the first time I have noticed it).
I also observed M5, M10, M92, and M12. Messier 12 was the hardest of these to resolve.
Saturn looked very nice with the 9mm. The shadow of the planet’s rings were easily seen on the planet’s surface. The rings are still nearly edge on so there was no real detail to be seen. Three of Saturn’s moons were easily visible. I looked up the planet in Stellarium to figure out which moons we were seeing and they were Rhea, Tethys, and Titan. I am not very good a sketching but I did draw a small sketch of the moons locations so I could look it up.
The kids came out for a bit to look at Saturn , Mars, and the Moon. My son Johnathan stay out with me for most of the time I was out, which was cool since he is generally not into it.
We tried to look at M81 and M82 but both of these appeared as just smudges. M81 had a bright center but no detail and M82 showed no detail, just a smudge of faint light. I am not sure if it was because of the amount of light pollution or if these targets are just better suited for the 8″ scope. I have observed both of these with good detail in the 8″.
Around 11:30 we were over the heat, humidity, and mosquitoes so we called it a night.
June 20th, 2010 by Hersey
Date: 6/19/2010
Time: 2:00 AM – Sunrise (approx. 5:30 AM) EDT
Scope: Celestron C6-SGT and Astro-Tech AT66
Eye Pieces: 22mm Panoptic, 9mm Nagler, 25mm Plossl, 32mm Plossl
Weather: 66 deg F, Humid, Few clouds early in the session then clear.
Moon: None
Alignment Stars: Arcturus and Vega
Calibration Star: Enif
From my observing notes:
I started out observing Messier 11. This open cluster looked great in the C6 with the 22mm Panoptic. Very easy to see individual stars in the tight cluster. One bright yellow star just off center of the cluster.
Then I turned to Messier 39, another open cluster. This cluster filled the 25mm Plossl eye piece in the AT66 also looked good with the 22mm in the C6. Because of the size I actually liked the wider field of view the 66 gave better.
I viewed several other open cluster – M18, M22, M23, M28, M26, and NGC6633. When observing Messier 28 (M28) I was not able to resolve individual stars even with the 9mm, it just appear to be a faint cloud. I think the humid air and the fair amount of light pollution to the south was probably the reason for the less than spectacular views in the 9mm. NGC6633 was another cluster that really looked great in the AT66 with the 25mm Plossl, the cluster just filled the field of view.
Jupiter was easy to spot. The dark northern gas band was very easy to resolve with the 22mm and 9mm in the C6 (the southern band is missing) and the 4 Galilean moons were clearly visible in all eye pieces and all scopes. The 22mm Panoptic gave me the best views, the seeing was just not good enough for the magnification of the 9mm. Easy to see the 4 moons in the AT66, but no detail on the planet. I observed Jupiter on into sunrise, it was still easily visible in the scope even as the sun began to peek over the horizon.
When the star Capella rose to the north east I started searching the north east for Comet 2009/R1 (McNaught) with binoculars. I was not able to successfully locate the comet with my binoculars.
Very heavy morning dew ended the viewing, I was pretty surprised that I did not have more problems with dew. There was a light dew on the scope but the corrector remained fairly clear with just the dew shield. I am looking forward to getting my dew heater so that my troubles with dew will become a thing of the past.
I think Jupiter would have been visible even in full sun light.
June 18th, 2010 by Hersey
I have had my Side-by-Side Celestron 6″ and Astro-Tech 66m set up a couple of times over the last week or so hoping that the skies would clear. Finally last night – cooler temperatures and fairly low humidity – except for a few passing clouds it was nearly perfect visual observing.
I spent sometime using the moon as a point of reference to get the C6, the AT66, and the finder scope on the C6 all pointing in the same direction. The C6 was very much out of collimation and I used the collimation instructions that were included with Bob’s Knobs that I installed on the scope to correct this. Collimation was tedious and it took a few tries to get a feel for which knob(s) needed to be adjusted to move the diffraction rings in the correct direction but after I got the hang of it I was able to get the scope collimated – first with the 25mm Plossl and then with 9mm Nagler. I had never tried/worried about collimation, it took a bit of patience and several tries before I got it right, this process should be much easier in the future. I can see a difference between collimated and uncollimated when bringing an object into focus, but once in focus I did not really notice a difference between the two, this is really much more critical for astrophotography than for visual observing. I can also see where this process would be extremely hard using the secondary screws instead of the Bob’s Knobs.
Since it was a school(work) night and I knew that I did not want to be was not going to be out very late I did not go through the usual precise polar and GOTO alignment process. I just did a quick solar system alignment and had the GOTO point the scopes at Saturn. Used the 25mm Plossl to get the ringed planet centered and then replaced the Plossl with 9mm Nagler – AMAZING!!! The 9mm Nagler gave me nice clear view at about 167x magnification with a 0.49 FOV with this little 6″ SCT. I could clearly see the shadow of the rings across the planet’s surface and I counted 4 visible moons. One moon was visible just over the planets rings. I was really amazed at the clarity and wide field of view. Compared to the view through my 8″ using a 15 mm Plossl (135x with a FOV of 0.37 degrees) the view through the 9mm Nagler was just incredible.
I was only out for about an hour before the bugs got bad (should not have been out there barefoot and wearing shorts) but that was OK since I have to be up early for work. If it had not been for the bugs I probably would have stayed out all night enjoying the views of Saturn (and others). Tonight it is Friday, no work tomorrow, and I am looking forward to getting Saturn (and hopefully Jupiter later in the night and then possibly another try at Comet McNaught) back in the scope. If the skies are clear I pretty sure I will be out most of the night.
I am glad I picked up this little C6 and I think I am really going to enjoy the side by side setup – especially after I get a chance to do some imaging.
April 5th, 2010 by Hersey
Mercury and Venus at sunset on April 2, 2010.
The two planets were suppose to be even closer together in the sky on Saturday night, but heavy clouds in the west only allowed Venus to shine through.
Here is a shot I got of the two on Friday evening at sunset. This photo was taken using my Nikon D60 with a Sigma 105mm.
