Michael A. Phillips' Astro Blog

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Fun with dancing Saturnian moons

And facebox labels!

Capture notes:
Seeing makes the rings quiver and nowhere as good as a few nights ago. I still have not touched the focus or collimation, but did capture Regulus in Red. My regular routine 1/15s per channel (still all channels full gain). Initially the fps were set wrong as I work the kinks out of this setup. That was not as bad as it sounds, I lost some frame per channel, but it was only 180s per channel. Fixed for the 2nd run at 300s per channel which is what I really like on Saturn especially with variable seeing. Seeing degraded towards the 3rd cap, despite more cooling between 2 and 3

Observer	Michael A. Phillips Mr.
Site	Home
Begin	2009-05-30 um 21:00:00-05:00
End	2009-05-30 um 22:21:00-05:00
Seeing	3 (fair)
Optics	C8i
Eyepiece	PowerMate (V=812.8)
Filter	Astronomik LRGB Color
Camera	DMK21AF04
Sitzung	2009-05-30 um 21:00:00-05:00

References

Sessions: 2009-05-30 um 20:30:00-05:00

Begin:	2009-05-30 um 20:30:00-05:00
End:	2009-05-30 um 22:30:00-05:00

Weather:	Seeing: 7/10 Transparency: 3/5 Forecast: Initially, 4/5 for both, but recently clouds crept in, which didn't appear at all in dusk. I hope the seeing holds!
Equipment:	Ubuntu 9.04 Linux and custom coriander on Lenovo T61 (Cepheus) 8" Celestron C8i SCT Lymax Cat Cooler DMK 21AF04 2.5x PowerMate Astronomik LRGB filters True Tek Color Filter Wheel with visu diag
Comments:	Bad drift even after a rough leveling of the tripod and auto-two star eq align. I didn't check the errors per axis, but I can't survive the drift without a reposotion of Saturn after 1 - 2 minutes, which is only annoying as I've yet to get scope control in Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty jackalope in Kstars/Indi. Took a break from Saturn imaging ~2140 for re-cooling of scope... not sure it helped, but back imaging at 2202

>> 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

Created: 06/03/2009 20:14:11

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Multiply here to stay!

http://digg.com/d1sGzU

BTW, long tail is an economic strategy...

Good Saturn while dodging the clouds May 28

Capture notes:
The forecast called for ~50% cloudiness at the beginning of the evening and I wasn't really prepared to go out as my computers weren't setup for my captures software. I was able to get things running pretty quickly and with some luck caught some data before the clouds came in for good. Seeing was as good as predicted. Amazingly enough, I have not had this scope outside in over 1 month! I didn't even touch the focus or collimation for these captures! Clouds killed a straight up 3x min per channel run, so I mixed a few captures together. I hate shooting through the clouds, but the atmosphere was actually very steady so that made up for it.

Processing notes:
Being on the new Ubuntu 9.04 install I had to reinstall all my programs. Registax 5 is now out in full and I tried that out. Initially I thought my saved HowTo-v7 wavelets scheme's were too harsh, but I think they still worked well. I tried a different, lighter scheme but wasn't impressed so I went back to the old scheme.

Observing notes:
Despite varying cloudiness the RGB image came out well. Everything is well balanced. Does anyone know what the dark line is that is below the rings in the EZ area?

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

4-Temp

Friday, May 22, 2009

My best Galactic photo yet...

Since the major upgrade to the 6" f/5 Schmidt-Newt OTA on the Celeston CGE with the right LPS-P2-FF filter, I've had lots of variables to work with, including my post-processing routine.

Now I can drive up to and past 10min subs with guiding on the 4" piggybacked skywatcher. It's pretty cool to work with, but the weather has kept me from practicing very often.

May 19th, I got a try at M101, the CN challenge of the month.

Mine is far from the best, but it's a personal best for me.

I followed my v1 routine which will end up as a blog here soon enough.

Enjoy,

Mike