Planets x3 as the weather moves from Winter to Spring

As the North Carolina weather moves from dry, large temp swings winter to the warm, moist and hazy spring I found a spell of settled weather the days of May 7th and 8th.  Starting with the 8th in this post I observed Jupiter, the Moon, Mars and Saturn.  The first time I've had three major planets in a single night in many years!

My Scope +Akule
Type: Custom Home Built Newtonian
Aperture: 356mm (14")
Focal Ratio: f/4.5 - 5x TeleVue Powermate at f/26 / 9,315mm EFL
Primary Mirror: Carl Zambuto 14" f/4.5
Camera: Point Grey Research Flea3 - FL3-FW-03S1M (monochrome)
Color Filter Wheel: True Technology UK (Tru-Tek) - SupraSlim with Visual Wide Wheel (built in diagonal)
Filters: Baader Planetarium LRGB Telescope Filter Set


Jupiter - not too shabby for being low and late in the season.

All the rest of this past, and quite productive Jupiter season (
https://plus.google.com/photos/+MichaelAPhillips/albums/5920900341220145457?banner=pwa)

Mars

All the rest of this season (https://plus.google.com/photos/+MichaelAPhillips/albums/5962944171620737953?banner=pwa)

and the mighty Saturn sporting a 20 degree ring angle!

Here's last years collection (https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/+MichaelAPhillips/albums/5842690900648084529)
Still working on this years! This is only the 3rd shot and 2nd with this camera.




The 7th's images are...

Mars' animation of nearly 1 hours worth of rotation

Final derotated image

And finally Saturn from the 1st night!

More of my Astronomy work on the main page: http://maphilli14.webs.com/

Also these images were assembled in an automated fashion with some custom scripts in sikuli and python.  The total time in the stacking program AutoStakkert2 and the sharpening program AstraImage is seen in my Resucetime stats for the week:

4h 34m of automated AstraImage stacking and 3h 34m of AS2 stacking = 8hrs and 8min of time back in my life instead of babysitting mundane programs that made me bored out of my mind!  ;)  Yay for automation!  Basically it frees me up to surf reddit on my cell phone!  haha!

8" Mars quickie

My 1st since Early April. Here I live near too many trees that kick off pollen. Here's my scope in 2012

Anyway, I learned my lesson well, it's sticky, thick and doesn't clean up off the corrector easily so I decided to take my time with the 14" newt and clean and grease the mount gears, center the focuser and scrub the primary during this endless season. I couldn't resist last night and took out the C8 for only the 3rd time in almost a year. I didn't touch the collimation and only wanted to observe Mars visually. As breezy at it was and as poor as the forecast was I was impressed at how much I could see at 500x with a 4mm eyepice. I slipped in the 2.5x PowerMate and color DBK21AU618.AS camera and shot a pair of shots. It's not what I'm used to using the 14" so much but it was fun tossing about running on battery power!
Thanks for reading!

2006 DP14

EDIT: Thanks all! It was mag 15.4, 30s subs. Moving at 3.65"/min at time of captures.

During the +Virtual Star Party on February 16, 2014 I found Near Earth Asteroid, 2006 DP14.
This animation includes times: 2131EDT to 2154EDT using 30sec subs in Lum in my telescope, +Akule

Type: Custom Home Built Newtonian

Aperture: 356mm (14")

Focal Ratio: f/4.5  / 1,600mm FL

Primary Mirror: Carl Zambuto 14" f/4.5

Mount: Celestron CGE

Imaging Camera: SBIG STF-8300M (monochrome)

Color Filter Wheel: True Technology UK (Tru-Tek) - SupraSlim with Visual Wide Wheel (built in diagonal)

Filters: Baader Planetarium LRGB Telescope Filter Set

Guiding: Teleskop-Service TS9-OAG off axis guider

Guide Camera: The Imaging Source DBK 21AU618.AS

OS: Lenovo W530 (Microsoft Windows 7 64-bit)

Acquisition: Main Sequence Software - Sequence Generator Pro

Processing: DeepSkyStacker -> DigiKam -> Linux Convert to animated gif

Click for full screen and look in on the right side in the middle...

Asteroid 2006 DP14 PLANNING - A bad spell of weather

If you didn't know my weather at 35 degrees North Latitude is typically pretty moderate.  This winter has served up the coldest temps since my move to the area 10 years ago.  We've also suffered 2 large snow storms in as many weeks.  In between has been wrought with clouds, rain and just very unfriendly astronomy weather.

Some history:
http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KRDU/2014/1/01/MonthlyHistory.html#calendar

Undeterred,I am trying to get Asteroid 2006 DP14, the next clear night which may coincide with the +Virtual Star Party February 16, 2014.

It's fading fast and slowing down in apparent motion.  Still well within my 14" and SBIG CCD, I hope to get a chance to image SOMETHING again soon.



Via the MPC (Minor Planet Center)

Minor Planet Ephemeris Service: Query Results

Below are the results of your request from the Minor Planet Center's Minor Planet Ephemeris Service. Ephemerides are for the geocenter.

---

2006 DP14
Display all designations for this object / # of variant orbits available = 3
Perturbed ephemeris below is based on 4-opp elements from MPEC 2014-C58. Last observed on 2014 Feb. 13.
Further observations? PHA: Very desirable between 2014 Mar. 15-Apr. 14.

     K06D14P       [H=18.9]
Date       UT      R.A. (J2000) Decl.    Delta     r     El.    Ph.   V      Sky Motion       Uncertainty info
            h m s                                                            "/min    P.A.    3-sig/" P.A.
2014 02 10 000000 22 39 50.6 -51 53 31   0.020   0.971   39.7 139.6  17.2   87.36    131.7         1 314.7 / Map / Offsets
2014 02 11 000000 04 36 54.4 -55 34 19   0.016   0.986   86.5  92.6  13.2  134.59    054.6         0 070.7 / Map / Offsets
2014 02 12 000000 06 54 19.5 -26 21 08   0.025   1.001  122.9  55.9  12.9   58.67    031.0         0 357.0 / Map / Offsets
2014 02 13 000000 07 26 40.9 -12 53 19   0.038   1.015  136.7  41.8  13.5   24.85    028.3         0 312.6 / Map / Offsets
2014 02 14 000000 07 40 24.7 -06 31 19   0.053   1.030  142.4  35.8  14.0   13.01    027.8         0 058.2 / Map / Offsets
2014 02 15 000000 07 47 59.6 -02 56 00   0.068   1.044  145.2  32.7  14.5    7.89    027.8         0 043.6 / Map / Offsets
2014 02 16 000000 07 52 49.8 -00 39 00   0.083   1.058  146.5  31.0  15.0    5.28    028.0         0 038.9 / Map / Offsets
2014 02 17 000000 07 56 12.9 +00 55 36   0.099   1.072  147.1  30.0  15.3    3.79    028.5         0 036.7 / Map / Offsets
2014 02 18 000000 07 58 44.7 +02 04 51   0.114   1.086  147.3  29.4  15.7    2.86    029.0         0 035.4 / Map / Offsets
2014 02 19 000000 08 00 44.0 +02 57 46   0.130   1.100  147.2  29.1  16.0    2.24    029.8         0 034.6 / Map / Offsets
2014 02 20 000000 08 02 21.6 +03 39 34   0.146   1.114  146.9  29.0  16.2    1.81    030.8         0 034.0 / Map / Offsets
2014 02 21 000000 08 03 44.2 +04 13 28   0.162   1.127  146.5  28.9  16.5    1.51    031.9         0 033.6 / Map / Offsets
2014 02 22 000000 08 04 56.1 +04 41 33   0.177   1.141  146.0  29.0  16.7    1.28    033.3         0 033.3 / Map / Offsets
2014 02 23 000000 08 06 00.3 +05 05 13   0.193   1.154  145.5  29.1  16.9    1.11    034.9         0 033.1 / Map / Offsets
2014 02 24 000000 08 06 58.7 +05 25 27   0.209   1.167  144.9  29.2  17.1    0.98    036.6         0 032.9 / Map / Offsets
2014 02 25 000000 08 07 52.9 +05 42 59   0.226   1.180  144.2  29.3  17.3    0.87    038.6         0 032.8 / Map / Offsets
2014 02 26 000000 08 08 44.0 +05 58 19   0.242   1.193  143.6  29.5  17.5    0.79    040.8         0 032.7 / Map / Offsets
2014 02 27 000000 08 09 32.8 +06 11 50   0.258   1.206  142.9  29.7  17.7    0.73    043.0         0 032.6 / Map / Offsets
2014 02 28 000000 08 10 19.9 +06 23 52   0.274   1.219  142.2  29.9  17.8    0.67    045.5         0 032.5 / Map / Offsets
2014 03 01 000000 08 11 05.8 +06 34 37   0.291   1.231  141.4  30.1  18.0    0.63    047.9         0 032.5 / Map / Offsets
2014 03 02 000000 08 11 51.0 +06 44 18   0.307   1.244  140.7  30.3  18.1    0.60    050.5         0 032.5 / Map / Offsets

WinJUPOS Image Measurement Tutorial

WinJUPOS Image measurement basics

http://astromaphilli14.blogspot.com/2014/02/winjupos-image-measurement-tutorial.html

Sit back and click WATCH IN HD (https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/91449?hl=en)

If you have a fast Internet connection, you can change your settings to make sure videos always play in HD qualities when they’re available:

1. Go to your Settings page
2. Select Always play HD on fullscreen (when available)
3. Click the Save button

Project homepage: http://jupos.org/

Other based tutorials: http://www.grischa-hahn.homepage.t-online.de/astro/winjupos/tutorials.htm

Navigation shortcuts: http://alpo-j.asahikawa-med.ac.jp/Latest/WinJUPOS/winjuposcuide_english.html

Keyboard operation when the position of the circle is adjusted by hand
       Arrow keys ---direction buttons for moving the outline
       PgUp ---increases the size of the outline
       PgDn ---decreases the size of the outline
       N --- rotates the outline clockwise
       P --- rotates the outline counterclockwise
       Backspace --- rotates the outline by 180 degrees

GETTING STARTED in WinJUPOS: Review ephemeris here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJf-XvVVC0c

START WATCHING NOW!

 Part 1 - Review Introduction https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mky7JvMlDHw

 Part 2 - Understanding your image orientation http://youtu.be/mky7JvMlDHw?t=1m57s

Start this one at 1min 57sec

 Part 3 - Learn to navigate the image outline https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkPiKgdpcAg

 Part 4 - Tricks for more accurate measurements http://youtu.be/psdw0TPmuwA

Also you can customize your WinJUPOS texture maps here:

https://plus.google.com/photos/+MichaelAPhillips/albums/5698361559079913249

usage http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTgnbzA4sGs&feature=youtu.be

Music

Artist of the track: Chris Zabriskie

Title of the track: “I Am Running Down the Long Hallway of Viewmont Elementary”

Direct URL of the track: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Chris_Zabriskie/I_Am_a_Man_Who_Will_Fight_for_Your_Honor/I_Am_Running_Down_the_Long_Hallway_of_Viewmont_Elementary

Link to the license terms: http://chriszabriskie.com/licensing/

Terms of the license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Notes about creation of this screencast.

WinJUPOS version 2013-12-15, 10.1.0 was used in Win7 32bit running on VirtualBox

Host OS is Ubuntu 12.04 64bit on a Lenovo W530

- Recording done with gtk-recordmydesktop

- Thumbnail talking head HD webcam and guvcview (ontop wm setting)

- Slides and overlays done with gimp

- Screen recording converted with Arista

- Video editing done in openshot

tags:

science astronomy solar system winjupos jupiter saturn mars astrophotography processing imaging tips tutorials screencast

Jupiter ANIMATION Io and Ganymede

This night was a lucky night.  I had not looked at the weather forecast enough to know  it would be good or not.  Cold temps aside, I decided day of to setup and go out with the 14" f/4.5 scope ( +Akule ).  As an added bonus +Mitchell Duke tipped me off to a transit of the Jovian moon, Ganymede.  Looking closer at the ephemeris Io was slipping into Jupiter's own shadow and disappearing behind the disk of Jupiter just a couple of minutes before the Ganymede transit.  That stability of the atmosphere, seeing, was also favorable.

Additional details I provided to a reddit post regarding my blog entry: http://astromaphilli14.blogspot.com/2014/01/jupiter-on-20140104-in-good-seeing-with.html

I shoot the planets with my 14" f/4.5 (native focal length is 1600mm). I add a 5x barlow which gets me close to 9200mm (isn't not preciesly 5x but varies) Then I add a monochrome Flea3 camera from PointGrey Research. To get color I shoot with filters to give me Red, Green and Blue images. Each color image consists of capturing many frames of each color as fast as I can. I shoot the red at 120 frames per second (FPS), then the same for the green and bit slower for the blue as it's not as sensitive. So for example the red is running at 120fps for 30seconds. That nets me ~3,600 images (stored in .avi video format), again for green and then blue. Wait on second and start another sequence of R, G and B, 30s, 30s, and 30s. So each color image is 90 total seconds of capturing. I capture back to back and if you can believe it, the moon Io (right one) moves so fast in 90seconds I had to adjust the color channels in the final image. I capture many RGB runs back to back for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I use a very sophisticated program called WINJupos to derotate (a method of combining individual images that have rotated to a different central meridian or longitude) all of them. This increases the signal-to-noise present in each of the single RGB runs. I also capture many RGB runs in order to make a cool animation of the moons moving and planet rotating.

Raw frames as promised: Nearly the worst of a single sequence of red filtered images

Best of 3600 frames in Red:

Normally I stack the best 75% of the 3,600 frames in AutoStakkert which uses a process called 'lucky imaging'
After stacking I sharpen using some deconvolution tricks in AstraImage. I also combine the filtered monochrome frames to a composite RGB.
Then derotation win WINJupos.
Then photoshop magic like denoise, color, high pass filters, rgb channel alignments.
I have yet to look at the features on Ganymede to see if they're accurate or if I just messed up in my processing treatment.

Video assembly was done with stills hand processed in Photoshop per the above prescription and then some Photoshop actions for the mundane processing (I highly recommend PS actions!)  Then the stills are copied and renumbered to move forwards then backwards with a simple python script.  Then, again in python, I used 10 differing frame rates to render 10 separate videos.  FPS values are [3,6,9,12,15,18,21,24,27,30].  These 10 rendered videos are then renumbered to start slow and then move faster each time, building to a maximum then slowing back down.  I rendered each of those videos 2x times in openshot where I also added the title screens and music that I stumbled upon via http://freemusicarchive.org.  It was literally the 2nd song I clicked on in the classical/ambient section and I think matches the video quite well.

Thanks to all who shared their joy with me in this post!

Jupiter on 20140104 in good seeing with Io and Ganymede

I will be spending some time with this as I've not gotten good images in quite some time.  This may just be one of the best shots I've ever taken.

My fatal flaw in the past half dozen times out may have been lack of over-cooling and setting up too near to the warm house in the cold winter.  I also had been setting up near my family van, which while cool and not having run for several hours, may have been retaining heat differently than the ground.
So I moved as far away from the house and neighbors house as possible and I think that helped some.  I also started cooling the spit out of the mirror, aggressively.  Even when cooled for hours in the winter the heat in the pyrex mirror comes back.  I think there's a small heat engine inside that beast!  I think managing the local thermal conditions at night is a bit of a razors edge and the slightest little change means quite a bit!

I don't often get clear skies for a transit of Ganymede and wanted to make the best of it.  So I shortened my capture duration and ran 30 of them back to back with the camera settings embedded in the image Red for 30s, Green for 30s, Blue for 30s, pause a second and repeat.  I'm amazed at how much Io moves in 90seconds.  The planet's features don't change much in 90s for my resolution, but the inner moon, Io moves FAST!


I have a work in progress animation that will probably get uploaded to YouTube and become an adjunct post to this later on.