Michael A. Phillips' First Jovian Year (2007-2019)

Michael A. Phillips' First Jovian Year (2007-2019)

 Building off my last blog where I complained about all the planets being low in 2019.  I offer this illustration of a full Jovian year.  During this time period you can see Jupiter starting at a low altitude in2007 and rising to a high altitude around 2014 only to dip back down in 2019.   What's really telling to me is that even after swapping telescopes in 2011 the quality still drops from 2012 to 2019 because of the altitude.

Full RES Imgur : https://i.imgur.com/sc4xNrm.png

All my photos from amateur and some home-built equipment, taken fro my house in North Carolina, USA.

Thanks! It was quite fun to realize the journey I was on!

Links and descriptions for each year's best:

August 3, 2007
C8i - DMK21af04  - 32°

September 4, 2008
C8i - DMK21af04  - 39°

June 30, 2009
C8i - DMK21af04 - 41°
Bird Strike

October 23, 2010
C8i - PGR Flea 3 - 50°
SEB Disappeared

November 8, 2011
Akule 14" - PGR FLea 3  - 64°

October 14, 2012
Akule 14" - PGR FLea 3  - 72°

January 4, 2014
Akule 14" - PGR FLea 3  - 75° Published in S&T

March 24, 2015
Akule 14" - ASI174MM - 70°

February 28, 2016
Akule 14" - ASI174MM - 60°

March 4, 2017
Akule 14" - ASI174MM - 48°

July 11, 2018
Akule 14" - ASI174MM - 39°

July 2, 2019
Akule 14" - ASI290MM - 32°
 

October saw some great clear skies -- Part 1

This month was full of many clear days.  I took advantage


First up is NGC 100, which according to http://cseligman.com/text/atlas/ngc1.htm has "a mere apparent size of 6.2 by 0.6 arcmins." It is also described as "exceptionally elongated galaxy, with a very small nucleus in comparison to its overall size. Such galaxies are sometimes called "superthin" galaxies." Nearby is PGC 1509358 a 17.9th mag galaxy.

Also in the lower left is UGC00219 a bright 15.5mag at a distance of 240,700,000 LY



Come poke around the full 1:1 resolution here


Next up is NGC 7814, another edge on galaxy. The one sports a nice dust lane and in contrast to the above galaxy, NGC100, this galaxy, NGC 7814 is a spiral. It "is sometimes referred to as "the little sombrero", a miniature version of Messier 104." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_7814) Edge on galaxies are very fun and the reddish orange core might be slightly exaggerated in this photo unintentially as I had a color balance issue.






Here's a link to the full 1:1 resolution

In the high res photo, the most astounding thing I've found to date is SDSSJ000302.45 or PGC3377433 in another catalog. At mag 20+ this tiny galaxy has a measured recessional velocity of 115421 km/s in converted distance it's 5.3 BLY away!!! WHAT?!!

Between the galaxy NGC7814 and the three bright starts to its right is the faint galaxy in question. Here's a closer look.

Labeled

Unlabeled

Blink Animation

Finally up a a face on galaxy and part of the Messier catalog, M74.  It's two main spiral arms make it a Grand design spiral galaxy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_design_spiral_galaxy ).

Full res here!!!



My full album of all galaxy photos - https://plus.google.com/photos/+MichaelAPhillips/albums/5825355202588613809?banner=pwa

All deep sky photos are here - http://maphilli14.webs.com/mike-s-deep-sky-photos

All photos are taken with my custom 14" f/4.5 Newtonian ()

Mars 2014 ANIMATION!

Mars 2014 ANIMATION!

Using 7 processed and derotated source images from 7 different nights as seen in the labeled WinJUPOS map

Using Photoshop to feather out the seams, this map used for the final animation

A brief and related tutorial on processing Mars is here:

Akule Planetary Equipment H/W

Type: Custom Home Built Newtonian

Aperture: 356mm (14")

Focal Ratio: f/4.5 - 5x TeleVue Powermate at f/26 / 9,315mm EFL

Primary Mirror: Carl Zambuto 14" f/4.5

Camera: Point Grey Research Flea3 - FL3-FW-03S1M (monochrome)

Color Filter Wheel: True Technology UK (Tru-Tek) - SupraSlim with Visual Wide Wheel (built in diagonal)

Filters: Baader Planetarium LRGB Telescope Filter Set

Filters: Astronomik ProPlanet 742 IR-pass filter

Filters: Astrodon-Schuler UV filter

Images: http://imgur.com/a/0znBY#0

Blog: http://maphilli14.webs.com/apps/blog/?view_type=1

Akule Planetary Processing S/W

OS: Lenovo W530 (Microsoft Windows 7 64-bit)

Acquisition: Torsten Edelmann’s Firecapture

Processing: AutoStakkert 2 -> AstraImage -> WinJUPOS -> PhotoShop -> Gimp

Asteroid Trifecta with animation.

I've got the bug, the bug of observing minor planets.  I think it started with the pass of Eros in 2012 (http://astromaphilli14.blogspot.com/2012/02/asteroids-eros-and-tyche.html)  When treating my images I found another little drifter, faintly moving through . I was hooked!  I thought I had discovered something. Turned out the classic case of what's new to me was something already discovered in 1886 but whatever. In learning more since then I've struggled with getting the hang of things. After upgrading from a DSLR to a CCD I found myself reinvigorated. With some recent clear skies and a bit more patience and some growing discipline I have observed this group of three asteroids; (1530) Rantaseppa, (4478) Blanco, and (4687) Brunsandrej. All within the same FOV for my scope and camera of 37.5 x 28.3 arcmin.  Then in an effort to get a +Minor Planet Center designation I found them again a few days later, all still 'apparently' together.

Using Astrometrica to measure position and magnitude you will see the number designation followed by the magnitude in parentheses.

NOTE there are MANY other asteroids in this fov as there are most, but my 2min subs in the 14" didn't quite make out the fainter, say mag18-20+ objects.  Not yet!

Night one - 20140221

Full field

(1530) Rantaseppa

(4478) Blanco

(4687) Brunsandrej

Boring! it was fun to see, but on Night 2

Night TWO - 20140224

In this video you will see an animation of the three asteroids moving over the course of 23:27 to 23:45 EDT or just 17 minutes of movement!

Easiest to click the direct YouTube link and make fullscreen HD (http://youtu.be/rpSW-wN1NS4)

Planets x3 as the weather moves from Winter to Spring

As the North Carolina weather moves from dry, large temp swings winter to the warm, moist and hazy spring I found a spell of settled weather the days of May 7th and 8th.  Starting with the 8th in this post I observed Jupiter, the Moon, Mars and Saturn.  The first time I've had three major planets in a single night in many years!

My Scope +Akule
Type: Custom Home Built Newtonian
Aperture: 356mm (14")
Focal Ratio: f/4.5 - 5x TeleVue Powermate at f/26 / 9,315mm EFL
Primary Mirror: Carl Zambuto 14" f/4.5
Camera: Point Grey Research Flea3 - FL3-FW-03S1M (monochrome)
Color Filter Wheel: True Technology UK (Tru-Tek) - SupraSlim with Visual Wide Wheel (built in diagonal)
Filters: Baader Planetarium LRGB Telescope Filter Set


Jupiter - not too shabby for being low and late in the season.

All the rest of this past, and quite productive Jupiter season (
https://plus.google.com/photos/+MichaelAPhillips/albums/5920900341220145457?banner=pwa)

Mars

All the rest of this season (https://plus.google.com/photos/+MichaelAPhillips/albums/5962944171620737953?banner=pwa)

and the mighty Saturn sporting a 20 degree ring angle!

Here's last years collection (https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/+MichaelAPhillips/albums/5842690900648084529)
Still working on this years! This is only the 3rd shot and 2nd with this camera.




The 7th's images are...

Mars' animation of nearly 1 hours worth of rotation

Final derotated image

And finally Saturn from the 1st night!

More of my Astronomy work on the main page: http://maphilli14.webs.com/

Also these images were assembled in an automated fashion with some custom scripts in sikuli and python.  The total time in the stacking program AutoStakkert2 and the sharpening program AstraImage is seen in my Resucetime stats for the week:

4h 34m of automated AstraImage stacking and 3h 34m of AS2 stacking = 8hrs and 8min of time back in my life instead of babysitting mundane programs that made me bored out of my mind!  ;)  Yay for automation!  Basically it frees me up to surf reddit on my cell phone!  haha!