Venus taken on February 26 from 2311 to 2347 UTC in UV.
I wouldn't have ever thought to look but Emil Kraaikamp had found rotations in the clouds of Venus in a short 30-60 min of time. I had some captures laying around from Feb 26 and may have found moment in the following animation of 3 frames: 2309, 2340, and 2346 UT. Look in the lower left hand portion near the 'pole' for a high contrast area that shows the progression of what I think to be a cloud. Venus has been a tough target this year due to weather, work and family but I'm excited for the upcoming transit of Venus over the Sun!
This is an Ir / sG / UV - false color composite:
Here's is the 3 frame animation:
Thanks!
Mike
Monday, May 7, 2012
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Friday, May 4, 2012
One of my Best Saturn photos
Only my second of the season if you can believe. I am still waiting on good or even above average seeing. It was extra special to share this view in color on our Virtual Star Party seen here via Universe Today: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sskgPHsoOGs
Click image for full resolution:
ENJOY!
Mike
Sunday, April 29, 2012
M78 DSO Catch up
A few things to note. I have a 65 lbs scope mounted on a CGE and I can guide and DSO image! More on that in the future. Here's quick test.
Secondly I have a new noise filter to play with thanks to Chris Go's advice, Topaz Denoise!
Enjoy!
Mike
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Mars Limb Removal Techniques in Gimp
I made a tutorial on how to remove the limb artifacts on your Mars images. You'll see in this video tools in Gimp like layers, opacity and selection tools. I hope this is useful. It's 8 minutes long, but be sure to full screen and set to 720 to see all the little things going on in it.
Others here:
http://maphilli14.webs.com/planetaryastronomytutorial.htm
Friday, February 10, 2012
Mars 20120208
I think this is my 1st post of Mars this apparation that I'm proud of! Only my 3rd of the season. Weather was avg to just above avg, I ranked it 3+ of 5. Right now I'll take what I can get, but Mars peaks at such a late / funny hour I loose soooo much sleep....
anyway, TIA and enjoy!
Mike
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Asteroids Eros and Tyche
Yes a two for!
I was attempting to catch Eros, which is a Mars-crosser asteroid, and the first known to come within the orbit of Mars. Eros was also the first asteroid to be orbited by a probe, NEAR Shoemaker. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEAR_Shoemaker)
Fighting rain, clouds and bad seeing I missed closest approach by a few days. I also found I didn't know how to find the proper ephemeris. This did cause me to miss imaging Eros the 1st time out. That ended up ok, as I learned a lot about asteroid hunting and found a 2nd named asteroid, Tyche lurking right nearby! Pleasant surprise!
So, the good stuff. The following 17 sub-exposures of 2minutes each are taken on February 2nd, 2012 from 0528 to 0602 UT.
*WARNING* I didn't get perfect darks and there are some hot pixels drifting, but they're pixel sized, whereas the stars and asteroids are not. The stars are bloated and oversized due to slag in focus over the capture period, bad seeing, surface winds knocking the mount, overexposure and some coma in the optics of my Newt.
Look for two 'streaks' in this 34minute stack.
Labeled view with Eros near the large arrow on the left and Tyche in the lower right. (Click for larger view 40% original sized)
Click here for the mouse over finder chart
Close up of Eros' motion
And Tyche, which is a mere 13.2mag and 40km in size.
Here's a link to the larger, 67% size version
Some things I learned:
- How to use edit Stellarium database with new objects
- How to lookup information in the MPC (http://minorplanetcenter.net/iau/MPEph/MPEph.html) by object, date and time
- How to lookup a random area of the sky to find out what known objects are there in the MPC database (http://scully.cfa.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/checkmp.cgi)
- I also found some discrepancies between the MINOR PLANET CENTER ORBIT DATABASE (MPCORB) orbital elements for #Eros located here (http://www.stellarium.org/wiki/index.php/Solar_System_Objects) Don't seem to agree with the +MPC listing here:http://www.minorplanetcenter.net/iau/MPEph/MPEph.html
- A program called Astrometrica can perform field plots for Asteroid ephermis discovery and measurements. Thanks Dr. Pamela Gay!
Things I want to learn more about:
- How to use Astrometrica to do what it's supposed to do.
- Contribute my own observations to the community.
- My 14" F/4.5 Newtonian scope has fairly noticeable coma that I'd like to understand more.
- I may have a budding asteroid hunting fever and may want to learn more about search strategies!
Thanks,
Mike
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
