Tuesday, October 28, 2008

M31 - Andromeda Galaxy via piggyback

Observation logs










Object: M31

Galaxy in And
Alias: NGC224, Andromeda Galaxy

RA: 0h 42m 44s
Dec: 41° 16' 06"
Size:178.0′ × 178.0′
m(vis):4.5 mag
Origin:ObservationManager - Messier Catalog 1.0
ObserverMichael A. Phillips Mr.
SiteHome
Begin2008-10-26 um 20:20:00-05:00
End2008-10-26 um 23:30:00-05:00
Seeing4 (bad)
OpticsTamron
LensZoom
CameraCanon XTI
Sitzung2008-10-26 um 20:20:00-05:00
Visual impression

  • Good visual check on main core area. Also showed well in a single 4 min exposure.
  • Visual rating: Simple conspicuous object in the eyepiece

References

Sessions: 2008-10-26 um 20:20:00-05:00

Begin:2008-10-26 um 20:20:00-05:00
End:2008-10-26 um 23:30:00-05:00
Weather:Clear, good transparency and no moon. Seeing was below avg.
Equipment:Canon XTi with Tamron zoom lens piggybacked on the C8i, MaxDSLR on WinXP T43 driven via RDP from inside the house
Comments:1st attempt at full remote setup. I found a tracking was good after a 2 iter 2 star eq align: Az: 00' 21" Alt: 06' 03" Good for 4+ min piggybacked exposures! No network coverage in the garage forced me to setup a quick, ad-hoc x-over network between WinXP and Linux. Static addressing on both ends and FAST transfers! :P
>> Observations <<

Observer: Michael A. Phillips Mr.

>> Observations <<

Site: Home

Longitude:35.682°
Latitude:-78.743°
Timezone:UT-300 min
>> Observations <<

Optics: Tamron

Type:zoom SLR lens
Aperture:50.0 mm
Focal length:200.0 mm
>> Observations <<

Lens: Zoom

Vendor:Tamron
Focal length factor:200.0 mm
>> Observations <<

CCD Camera: Canon XTI

Vendor:Canon
Pixel:3888x2592
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Astronomy - Deep Sky - Galaxies




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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
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Labels: ,

Neptune Gallery




All Neptune photos since 2006
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Labels:

Mike Salway

http://www.mikesalway.com.au/
Mike Salway is an astounding Amateur Astronomer in Australia. Very helpful and knowledgeable!
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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
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