Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Neptune 2013 - 3hrs past opposition

I honestly have not been afforded the time or clear skies to be choosy about when and how I shoot the night sky most of this year.  I had intended to share Neptune with the +Virtual Star Party again this past Sunday, but it was not to be so, the clouds called me inside again.  I did get a break the night after, Monday, August 26, 2013.  Shortly after 1am or Aug 27, 0400UTC, I took this shot in very poor conditions.



If you pay attention to the star, labeled Collimation / Seeing in the lower corner you might notice that there is NO airy disk around the star.  A 2x series of collimations via catseyes and a round defocused star was best I can do.  This lack of airy disk is most likely the result of having quite poor seeing.  The star was jumping all over.  It was a dimmer star and the exposures were consistent or just faster than the planet Neptune itself.  It does reveal a sharp contrast between the resolved 2.4" disk of Neptune and the point of light from the star.

I was unable to get Triton due to the increasing cloudy and soupy skies.  And now back to our regularly scheduled M-Cloudy and 50% chance of rain!

Here is the growing list of all Neptune's I've ever shot.

And shout out to +Universe Today and +David Dickinson  for some Neptune info on opposition and finder charts!
http://www.universetoday.com/104098/how-to-see-planet-neptune-our-guide-to-its-2013-opposition/

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