Friday, October 24, 2008

Neptune 2008-10-15

Observation logs

Object: Neptune

Planet
Origin:ObservationManager - SolarSystem Catalog 1.0
ObserverMichael A. Phillips Mr.
SiteHome
Begin2008-10-15 um 19:50:00-05:00
End2008-10-15 um 22:10:00-05:00
Seeing3 (fair)
OpticsC8i
EyepiecePowerMate (V=812.8)
FilterAstronomik LRGB Color
CameraDMK21AF04
Sitzung2008-10-15 um 19:50:00-05:00
Visual impression

  • Neptune rises 1st and is dimmer than Uranus.Unfortunatley this makes adjusting to an object much harder. Finding was not as hard as I was thinking it was. A simple Precise-GoTo got me within the ~60* FOV. I double checked against Stellarium and was amazed that there it was! I was even more amazed to see it as a smallish disk visually. It's very dim, bluish and small, but there it was! RGB settings: RG - 3.418sec exp ; 928 Gain B - 3.418sec exp ; 1024 Gain 90s capture time per channel at above settings. RGB x 4 iterations = 3 captures per 'session' x 4 sessions. Therefore each RGB channel gets 4x .avi's stacked together. Each 90s capture resulted in 24 frames x 4 'sessions' in total about 100 frames per channel, best ~75% used (estimate) Darks taken and applied in Registax Lum for moons settings: Clear Filter (IR/UV Block) - 3.418sec exp ; 1024 Gain ; 50% Gamma 58 frames total and ~30-40 stacked Darks taken and applied in Registax

References

SETI reference:




















Red Shift 5 Reference:









And CalSky reference:









Sessions: 2008-10-15 um 18:45:00-05:00

Begin:2008-10-15 um 18:45:00-05:00
End:2008-10-15 um 23:30:00-05:00
Weather:Forecast called for S 4/5 and T 3/5 Actual S: 4-6 T: 2-3/5
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 Since the 3 day stretch of good seeing in early Sept, I have used the T61 Also used WinXP and IC Capture with the TrueTek Hand Controller for > 1sec exposures
Comments:To get Uranus and Neptune I had to move exposures beyond 1 second. Currently the custom coriander 1.0.0 does not support exposures beyond 1 second. Even at 1sec and 3.25fps I was unable to get usable data. As quickly as I could I switched to WinXP and IC Capture for camera control. A reboot and install of drivers burned some time, but a valuable lesson in prepareness. I did try to leverage previous whitebalance exercises on Jupiter for Uranus and Neptune. I found tracking and alignment horrible, but since finding 6-7mag planets isn't easy, I decided not to re-align. More and deeper exposures would have helped the moon shots.
>> 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
Posted by at 1 comment:
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Neptune Gallery




All Neptune photos since 2006
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Mike Salway

http://www.mikesalway.com.au/
Mike Salway is an astounding Amateur Astronomer in Australia. Very helpful and knowledgeable!
Posted by at No comments:

Friday, October 17, 2008

Jupiter 2008-10-15

Observation logs













Object: Jupiter

Planet
Origin:ObservationManager - SolarSystem Catalog 1.0
ObserverMichael A. Phillips Mr.
SiteHome
Begin2008-10-15 um 19:00:00-05:00
End2008-10-15 um 19:55:00-05:00
Seeing3 (fair)
OpticsC8i
EyepiecePowerMate (V=812.8)
FilterAstronomik LRGB Color
CameraDMK21AF04
Sitzung2008-10-15 um 19:00:00-05:00
Visual impression

  • Seeing was not as good as the previous night. I did spend some time on processing and aligning the moon Io. Make sure you zoom in to check it out, it's a tiny little 1+ arc sec disk!

References

Sessions: 2008-10-15 um 18:45:00-05:00

Begin:2008-10-15 um 18:45:00-05:00
End:2008-10-15 um 23:30:00-05:00
Weather:Forecast called for S 4/5 and T 3/5 Actual S: 4-6 T: 2-3/5
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 Since the 3 day stretch of good seeing in early Sept, I have used the T61 Also used WinXP and IC Capture with the TrueTek Hand Controller for > 1sec exposures
Comments:To get Uranus and Neptune I had to move exposures beyond 1 second. Currently the custom coriander 1.0.0 does not support exposures beyond 1 second. Even at 1sec and 3.25fps I was unable to get usable data. As quickly as I could I switched to WinXP and IC Capture for camera control. A reboot and install of drivers burned some time, but a valuable lesson in prepareness. I did try to leverage previous whitebalance exercises on Jupiter for Uranus and Neptune. I found tracking and alignment horrible, but since finding 6-7mag planets isn't easy, I decided not to re-align. More and deeper exposures would have helped the moon shots.
>> 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: 10/17/2008 23:15:32
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Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Jupiter 2008-10-14

Observation logs












Object: Jupiter

Planet
Origin:ObservationManager - SolarSystem Catalog 1.0
ObserverMichael A. Phillips Mr.
SiteHome
Begin2008-10-14 um 18:50:00-05:00
End2008-10-14 um 20:47:00-05:00
Faintest star3.0 mag
Seeing2 (good)
OpticsC8i
EyepiecePowerMate (V=812.8)
FilterAstronomik LRGB Color
CameraDMK21AF04
Sitzung2008-10-14 um 18:50:00-05:00
Visual impression

  • 3 captures in total, 1st two were best. Last one was horrible. I'm not confident on the settings. Records indicate 1/30s @ 15fps. Gain settings conflict with records as the gain values were low like I had set the exposure to 1/15 (like I tried to). I left the image captions as 1/15.

References

Sessions: 2008-10-14 um 18:50:00-05:00

Begin:2008-10-14 um 18:50:00-05:00
End:2008-10-14 um 20:50:00-05:00
Weather:Forecast yesterday was a near perfect 4/5 for both Seeing and transparency. Today, dropped to S 4/5 and T x or 0 / 5 Actual S: 8/10 T: 1/5 Haze and thin clouds
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:Good seeing and a full moon had me thinking about Neptue and Uranus. After getting 2 x captures then putting the kids to bed I found the haze and upper level moisture (nicely responsible for the great seeing) was reflecting too much moonlight for getting dimmer planets. So I packed up and called it a night. On the bright side, I'm happy to see these great Jupiter results < 1 hr after packing up!
>> 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: 10/14/2008 21:30:18
Posted by at 1 comment:

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Jupiter 2008-10-08

Observation logs

















Object: Jupiter

Planet
Origin:ObservationManager - SolarSystem Catalog 1.0
ObserverMichael A. Phillips Mr.
SiteHome
Begin2008-10-07 um 19:50:00-05:00
End2008-10-07 um 20:30:00-05:00
Seeing2 (good)
OpticsC8i
EyepiecePowerMate (V=812.8)
FilterAstronomik LRGB Color
CameraDMK21AF04
Sitzung2008-10-07 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
Posted by at No comments:
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Thursday, October 2, 2008

2008-09-01 Jupiter

Observation logs


Object: Jupiter

Planet
Origin:ObservationManager - SolarSystem Catalog 1.0
ObserverMichael A. Phillips Mr.
SiteHome
Begin2008-09-01 um 21:00:00-05:00
End2008-09-01 um 21:10:00-05:00
OpticsC8i
EyepiecePowerMate (V=812.8)
FilterAstronomik LRGB Color
CameraDMK21AF04
Sitzung2008-09-01 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
Posted by at No comments:
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