Michael A. Phillips' Astro Blog

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Jupiter 2008-10-08

Observation logs

Object: Jupiter

Planet

Origin:

ObservationManager - SolarSystem Catalog 1.0

Observer	Michael A. Phillips Mr.
Site	Home
Begin	2008-10-07 um 19:50:00-05:00
End	2008-10-07 um 20:30:00-05:00
Seeing	2 (good)
Optics	C8i
Eyepiece	PowerMate (V=812.8)
Filter	Astronomik LRGB Color
Camera	DMK21AF04
Sitzung	2008-10-07 um 19:50:00-05:00

Visual impression

GRS is setting on the right (West). No transit, but great movement in the animation. Seeing cooperated well too!

References

Sessions: 2008-10-07 um 19:50:00-05:00

Begin:	2008-10-07 um 19:50:00-05:00
End:	2008-10-07 um 20:40:00-05:00

Weather:	Haze and thin clouds S: 8/10 T: 1/5
Equipment:	I used: Ubuntu 8.04 Linux and custom coriander 8" Celestron C8i SCT DMK 21AF04 2.5x PowerMate Astronomik LRGB filters True Tek Color Filter Wheel with visu diag
Comments:	Not a night I'd normally be going out as a slow moving cold front was moving in and brought a great amount of humidity and haze. Seeing forecast was good so I eyeballed the skies near Jupiter and decided to take a stab at it, especially with an attempt at an Io transit too. (Missed that)

>> Observations <<

Observer: Michael A. Phillips Mr.

>> Observations <<

Site: Home

Longitude:	35.682°
Latitude:	-78.743°
Timezone:	UT-300 min

>> Observations <<

Optics: C8i

Type:	SCT
Vendor:	Celestron
Aperture:	203.0 mm
Focal length:	2032.0 mm

>> Observations <<

Eyepiece: PowerMate

Vendor:	TeleVue
Focal length:	2.5 mm

>> Observations <<

Filter: Astronomik LRGB

Typ:

Color

>> Observations <<

CCD Camera: DMK21AF04

Vendor:	The Image Source
Pixel:	640x480

>> Observations <<

Created: 10/09/2008 22:39:22

Thursday, October 2, 2008

2008-09-01 Jupiter

Observation logs

Object: Jupiter

Planet

Origin:

ObservationManager - SolarSystem Catalog 1.0

Observer	Michael A. Phillips Mr.
Site	Home
Begin	2008-09-01 um 21:00:00-05:00
End	2008-09-01 um 21:10:00-05:00
Optics	C8i
Eyepiece	PowerMate (V=812.8)
Filter	Astronomik LRGB Color
Camera	DMK21AF04
Sitzung	2008-09-01 um 21:00:00-05:00

Visual impression

tech error night, new laptop not up to snuff/not configured properly. Then crashed once on software capture error, then human error, accidentally hit sudo halt. :( Got good caps despite extreme drops in temp. Especailly after using the Lymax cat cooler again while recovering from errors. Used old setup and refocused to get pretty good data!

References

Sessions: 2008-09-01 um 21:00:00-05:00

Begin:	2008-09-01 um 21:00:00-05:00
End:	2008-09-01 um 23:30:00-05:00

Weather:	Awesome high pressure in place for next 3 days just before TS Hanna S: 7-8/10 T: 4/5
Equipment:	I used: Ubuntu 8.04 Linux and custom coriander 8" Celestron C8i SCT DMK 21AF04 2.5x PowerMate Astronomik LRGB filters True Tek Color Filter Wheel with visu diag
Comments:	Tested custom coriander on T61 (Cepheus) with no success this night.

>> Observations <<

Observer: Michael A. Phillips Mr.

>> Observations <<

Site: Home

Longitude:	35.682°
Latitude:	-78.743°
Timezone:	UT-300 min

>> Observations <<

Optics: C8i

Type:	SCT
Vendor:	Celestron
Aperture:	203.0 mm
Focal length:	2032.0 mm

>> Observations <<

Eyepiece: PowerMate

Vendor:	TeleVue
Focal length:	2.5 mm

>> Observations <<

Filter: Astronomik LRGB

Typ:

Color

>> Observations <<

CCD Camera: DMK21AF04

Vendor:	The Image Source
Pixel:	640x480

>> Observations <<

Created: 10/02/2008 22:23:47

2008-09-30 Jupiter

Observation logs

Object: Jupiter

Planet

Origin:

ObservationManager - SolarSystem Catalog 1.0

Observer	Michael A. Phillips Mr.
Site	Home
Begin	2008-09-30 um 20:30:00-05:00
End	2008-09-30 um 21:40:00-05:00
Seeing	3 (fair)
Optics	C8i
Eyepiece	PowerMate (V=812.8)
Filter	Astronomik LRGB Color
Camera	DMK21AF04
Sitzung	2008-09-30 um 20:30:00-05:00

Visual impression

Transit of Io. Poor seeing, but a good 45min+ time lapse imaging session shows the spot where Io is/should be.

References

Sessions: 2008-09-30 um 20:22:00-05:00

Begin:	2008-09-30 um 20:22:00-05:00
End:	2008-09-30 um 22:00:00-05:00

Weather:	Forecast called for clouds. Surprisingly it cleared near dusk and stayed clear until a line of STRONG T-storms came in at 3am the same night. Seeing was avg or below 4-5/10 T: 3/5
Equipment:	I used: Ubuntu 8.04 Linux and custom coriander 8" Celestron C8i SCT DMK 21AF04 2.5x PowerMate Astronomik LRGB filters True Tek Color Filter Wheel with visu diag

>> Observations <<

Observer: Michael A. Phillips Mr.

>> Observations <<

Site: Home

Longitude:	35.682°
Latitude:	-78.743°
Timezone:	UT-300 min

>> Observations <<

Optics: C8i

Type:	SCT
Vendor:	Celestron
Aperture:	203.0 mm
Focal length:	2032.0 mm

>> Observations <<

Eyepiece: PowerMate

Vendor:	TeleVue
Focal length:	2.5 mm

>> Observations <<

Filter: Astronomik LRGB

Typ:

Color

>> Observations <<

CCD Camera: DMK21AF04

Vendor:	The Image Source
Pixel:	640x480

>> Observations <<

Created: 10/02/2008 18:51:20

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Jupiter in an 8" with Good Seeing

3 nights in a row of great seeing in early August.

My setup:

I use a Celestron C8i SE (orange tube) along with:

Ubuntu 8.04 Linux and custom coriander
DMK 21AF04
2.5x PowerMate
Astronomik LRGB filters
True Tek Color Filter Wheel with visu diag

some shots here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/maphilli14/MichaelAPhillipsAstronomyEquipment#5244213374458800210

http://picasaweb.google.com/maphilli14/MichaelAPhillipsAstronomyEquipment#5244213381800624706

Simple explanation of my v7 Processing routine:

1) Captured data saved as .fit in coriander
2) Sorted & cropped in ninox
3) Drag & Drop into Registax
4) No align, no reference, no optimize just stack and wavelet, save as .tif
5) Load each channel into Iris, adjust visu levels and set mono, adjust wavelets (slight)
6) Iris LRGB (trichro) function to assemble as RGB
7) Iris' unsharp mask
8) Iris resize and or final visu levels - save as .bmp for sending to gimp (anyone know any gimp/iris compatible formats, let me know!) and .jpg for web

Mike