Michael A. Phillips' Astro Blog

Friday, October 6, 2023

Jupiter's Moon Io caught spying on the Great Red Spot

This animation was taken from processing 235 AVI video files. Each file was cropped at 1008x950 and ranged in size from 2.02 to 2.38GB in size. After stacking in AutoStakkert3 the files were sharpened in AstraImage and RGB combined via automation with Python and AutoHotKey resulting in 75 images that were then converted with ImageMagik into an animation. The total time imaging was 117minutes and I would have had the rest of Io's transit if not for misjudging the scope placement into the path of a gorgeous Oak tree in my front yard.

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Akule Planetary Equipment H/W

* Type: Custom Home Built Newtonian (https://astromikephillips.wixsite.com/home/mikesastronomyequipment)

* Aperture: 35.6cm (14")

* Focal Ratio: f/4.5 + 5x TeleVue Powermate at 0.078"/px | 9,109mm EFL

* Primary Mirror: Carl Zambuto 14" f/4.5

* Camera: FLIR Blackfly BFS-U3-32S4M-C (monochrome, USB3.0)

* Color Filter Wheel: Starlight Xpress 7 Position 1.25" Carousel for Starlight Xpress USB Filter Wheel

* Filters: Baader Planetarium LRGB Telescope Filter Set

* Filters: Astronomik ProPlanet 742 IR-pass filter

* Filters: Astrodon-Schuler UV filter

Images: http://imgur.com/a/0znBY#0

Blog: http://maphilli14.webs.com/apps/blog/?view_type=1

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**Akule Planetary Processing S/W**

* OS: Lenovo P1 Gen 2 (Microsoft Windows 11 64-bit)

* Acquisition: Torsten Edelmann’s Firecapture

* Processing: AutoStakkert 3 -> AstraImage -> WinJUPOS -> PhotoShop -> Topaz DeNoise -> Google Nik -> Gimp - https://imgur.com/a/RhPRXD2

Detailed processing - https://astromaphilli14.blogspot.com/2020/09/mars-2020-processing-recipie-25x-pm.html

Music:

Artist of the track: Guillaume Robbe

Title of the track: fly

Direct URL of the track: https://www.jamendo.com/track/1003092/fly

Link to the license terms: https://www.jamendo.com/track/1003092/fly

Terms of the license: cc-sa cc-by

Tuesday, June 13, 2023

Parting view of Jupiter!

Sitting around for 6 months in my 'Latest' workflow folder I found this in some decent seeing. I was setup in a spot to dodge the trees for Mars and found a small gap to hit Jupiter while I waited!

Jupiter

Click the above link for past seasons, icons below for current season.

Monday, March 6, 2023

All my Mars 2022-2023 images into a full globe animation with REAL Polar Hood

Saturday, February 11, 2023

Dual comets!

Friday, February 10, 2023

Recent Mars photos

Sunday, January 29, 2023

Green comet - C/2022 E3 (ZTF)

I've got a good wide field setup and wanted lots of the tail but for some reason the tail is really on faint side of my setup or the light dome of Raleigh but I got it 2x times this week and it is great to see how much changes the comet goes through in a short period of time.

January 23rd 2023

January 27th 2023

For the extra curious, yes there are TWO tails, a dust tail and gas tail.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_tail

The dust tail that is a trail of dust that is left behind as it travels through space and the gas tail is created by the warming from the sun and ALWAYS points away from the sun. This is why you will see the tails in different directions. In my January 23rd photo they're nearly 180 degrees offset.