Mars and Saturn

The best Mars image I've ever taken.  I'm shocked at the detail!

The NexImage camera is incredible! I actually had no idea that an 8 inch could pull this much detail out of Mars, and with it being so low in the sky this year, I got lucky with how well the seeing was.

Saturn was also incredible with this camera too, and this image is probably my best Saturn to date.

Saturn, 4/8

After imaging M106 last night, I noticed Saturn rising above the trees to the south.  I believe this planet is approaching opposition, as the rings appear bright.  I havent checked to see when opposition occurs (or occured), as it does hit the horizon right around sundown.

I took 2 videos using the QC Pro 4000 webcam.  The first is a low res 240X320, 30 fps.

This is the original size image.  Because Saturn is so much dimmer than the other planets, I could not stack both barlows right away, although in the next image, I did stack them both, but dropped the frame rate down to 5 fps to get a longer individual exposure time per frame, and I believe it is my best Saturn so far.

This is a cropped 640X480 frame.  if you look closely, I believe the C-ring is visible, and I'm not entirely certain, but I also think I can see the Encle division on the left side.  it is a thin dark line barely visible on the outer edge of the outermost ring.

Leo & Saturn

First light with the Canon Rebel T3.  Ordered a T ring and adapter, but until it arrives, I cant get anything close up, so I photographed the constellation Leo this morning.  Was cloudy all night, and it appeared to somewhat clear up between 3 and 4AM local (EST).  These images were shot between 0800 and 1000 UTC.  The first image was of Leo, which i used 10 frames each 90 seconds in duration, and stacked in Deep Sky Stacker, which by the way, does a really nice job stacking these images.  I used the camera control software that came with the camera to snap the frames.

It appears this camera is going to produce some interesting results.  The dimmest stars are about 11.5 magnitude.  I used the 50mm stock camera lens stopped down to f/6.5 at iso 1600.    The camera was riding piggyback on the dobsonian, which was not perfectly polar aligned, hence the slight elongation of the fainter stars (which you may not notice much in this image)

The next image was taken using the above image.  On a whim, I wanted to see if I could see the "Leo Trio" of galaxies.  The quality is not great.  Keep in mind, I used the 50mm lens, so there wasnt much magnification.  I cropped the area in photoshop, then resized what was left about 3X.  I did a little contrast enhancement, and also got rid of some of the background noise, and was able to discern 3 fuzzies in the image which I have labelled..

 They are quite small, but as far as I can tell, they are indeed the 3 galaxies.

I finished up the evening taking a 2200 frame webcam shot of Saturn at 32 degrees to the South.  The rings are definitely tilted more favorably this year than last, but the planet appears lower in the sky this year.  I used the dob and 2X barlow (f/l 2400mm).  There appears to be a wide, dark band in the northern hemisphere.  The Cassini division is pretty well resolved.

This image consists of about 2200 useable frames.  Camera was the Quickcam Pro 4000 webcam.

This was an image I had taken while I was setting up, which consists of about 600 frames.  Both show the Cassini division as well as the dark northern hemisphere.

Tonights conditions:  Seeing appeared about average to good, Transparency was not so good, as I was watching the histogram changing as I was photographing Saturn.  I did not use  the light meter while photographing Leo.  I let the bright stars saturate.

Saturn 7/20

Was working on the telescope today, I removed the objective from the cell and checked to make sure the lenses were in correctly.  Also cleaned them up some, there was some dirt between the lenses.  I took it out and tested on Saturn, but Saturn was quite low, and the humidity was very high, so the transparency was not great.  I took 3 AVI's, and these are the images I was able to get.

These actually arent bad considering how bad the conditions were.

Also, I was having a problem with my XP laptop with Sharpcap.  It would not capture, so I took the Windows 7 machine out, but I have less control over the camera with that pc, most notably with the color balance, and I could not zoom, so I was stuck with what I had got.

Some "Last Ditch" Saturn Images

Saturn is getting rather low in the sky, and as a consequence, the planet is getting dimmer and blurrier.  Tonight wasnt half bad however, as I was able to resolve the Cassini division nicely.  The images are rather small tonight, because when I zoomed, I lost what little detail I got.  I dont see the Serpent Storm in these images.  Maybe someone with a good eye will see it.  Saturn is a lot more difficult than Jupiter, thats for sure.

Here's what I got:

The 1st image was uncropped, and is the actual 640X480 stack.  The 4th image I used a small amount of camera digital zoom.
The 1st image I used some color correction, the rest I did not use any.
All images were taken with the 127mm with the 3X barlow.  Most used 1/10 sec shutter, with about 25% gain and 25% or so gamma.  This is getting much harder to image.  It will be one of my last Saturn images for the year, I imagine.

7/13 Saturn

Nothing remarkable, took 8 AVI's.  Saturn is getting pretty low, 20 degrees above the horizon when these were taken.  I'm just going to post 2 of the best images, one color, one b&w.  Seeing was so-so, but the elevation was low.  Cant wait for Jupiter to come up early enough so I can work with it.

Reprocessed 6/29 Saturn

I actually went to the Registax website last night and read the instructions and followed the wavelet tutorial on the website and reprocessed 2 Saturn images I had posted last week.  I was able to bring out some pretty incredible detail with the new wavelet settings.  I'm just going to post the images and you can judge for yourself if you like them better.  I'm going to post the best color and the best monochrome images.

This is the best color image with concentration on planetary disk.

This is the best monochrome image, reprocessed.

I was working on getting the most out of the planet's disk.  The Cassini Division was visible but not very sharply defined in the images I had taken.  The stacksize was a bit smaller than I would have liked, but I believe what you see is actually the planet, not noise or artifacts generated by the program.  What I was able to bring out does not appear random, so I believe that what you see is what was actually picked up by the camera.

Saturn With Very Good Conditions

I had some time this evening to photograph Saturn and play with the settings.  Everything was taken using the 3X barlow and the 127mm scope.  Seeing was excellent, and the transparency was just as good.  I'm going to overdo it a little tonight, as I captured 10 AVI's and they ALL came out VERY nice.  I used different levels of digital zoom in the camera, and it didnt seem to matter how much I used.

Most of these images, I used 1/30 sec exposure, 10 FPS, 0 gamma and juse enough CCD gain to get a decent image (about 1/4 the way up).

Also I took some in greyscale, which I'll post first.

These show a fair amount of detail, and as you can see they all show the Cassini Division.

Now here are a few with the color turned on:

As you can see, these images are far superior to the others I took the other day.  I spent more time getting the focus perfect.  They all show varying degrees of detail, and again, all show the Cassini Division to some extent.

I really should buy a blue filter so I can experiment with RGB combining in photoshop.  I still havent got the hang of that.  When Jupiter comes up to the point where I can work with it at night, I'll try photographing it with different color filters and see what happens.

Anyway, I'm really happy with this batch of pictures.  Either I'm getting better or conditions were really good tonight and with the addition of that new barlow, I think my imaging will get better still.

New 3X Barlow and Some Saturn Pictures

I ordered a Meade Series 4000 3X Barlow last week, and it arrived on Monday.  Tonight was the first evening that I was able to try it out.  I think I had the focus pretty good, but its possible I could have done better.  I'll have more time to play with it, since it is supposed to be clear skies for the next few days.  Seeing appeared fair, but the transparency was excellent.  The Milky Way was visible it wass so clear.

Here are a couple of color images I took tonight with the new barlow.  I did not take any monochrome, although I should have.  I'll take a couple tomorrow night.  Here are the images:

possibly poor focus

camera zoom

this is the original size with the 3X.

I used the 127mm.  The effective focal length was 2100mm with the barlow.  My little trick sliding the camera in and out of the barlow really helped with the focusing.

I also tried using the 3X and the 2X back to back, but the image was too dim to get a decent photograph.  Notice on the 2nd image, the serpent storm is pretty clearly visible.  I am surprised that the Cassini Division wasnt as pronounced this evening.  Its possible I wasnt focused perfectly however, and that might be why.  Is the barlow going to make a difference in the image quality?  Right now, I'm not certain, the 2X may have the images at the limit of the telescope, but I thought being this is a much higher quality barlow than the 2X, that perhaps I would see a little more detail.  The serpent storm is pretty well visible, so perhaps the quality has improved.  It'll take a few more sessions to know for certain.

New Clock Drive and Some Saturn Images

Built a new clock drive using a stepper motor that has far less vibration than the other one I used, and it appears to be pretty smooth.  Unfortunately, I didnt have the scope polar aligned very well, but it seemed to track in RA pretty well.  I'm not seeing any vibration blur, and I havent even attempted any vibration dampening tricks, so I think I have a winner.

I took a couple of Saturn images.  Seeing was about a 5 and transparency about a 3-4, so the conditions werent near as good as on the 14th.  It was clear enough however to test the drive, which was my plan.

Here is what I took.  One image I used the camera zoom, and used it to an extreme.  I think if seeing was better, I would have had much better images.  Weather is hot and humid, and even after sundown, it hasnt appeared to have cooled much.

This is the image which I used the camera zoom.

I was not able to get the Storm in any of these images, either because of seeing, or possibly the transparency, or perhaps I might not have had the focus as good as the other night.  It looked good on the screen, the rings seemed pretty sharp.  I'm thinking it was because of the conditions actually.

The clock seemed to work very well, it is geared down substantially, which may help with any vibration issues, but this motor has far less vibration than the one I had been using.

Yesterday's Saturn (6/14)

My friend Mike stopped by last night for a little  astronomy session.  Mike is the owner of the 8 inch dob I was experimenting with a couple months ago.  He actually came to do some viewing and take it back home with him.  He also got to see how I image Saturn, as the sky was clear and we saw it in both my 127mm and his 8" reflector.  The views in his 8 inch were nothing short of breathtaking!  I only wished I could have photographed with it, the view was unbelieveable!  It was certainly large enough to really get some nice detail if I would have been able to image it.  The trouble is, the focal length of that scope is on the order of 4 feet or so, so the magnification would have been huge, making the field of view quite narrow.  I just could not find Saturn with the camera.  I was able to plainly see the shadow of the rings on the planets disk as a very fine line across the disk, as well as the Cassini division was plainly seen.  I was not able to see the serpent storm but I believe it was because of how bright the image was!  I used my 9mm eyepiece, which appeared to be the limit to the resolution.  The barlow made the image larger, but did not show much, if any more detail.  My neighbors came by for a look as well, and were treated to a big Saturn with excellent seeing.

We also split a few close stars, and went looking for fuzzies, but didnt see any.  We would have looked some more, but it was getting late, we wrapped up around midnight.

While Mike was working with the dob, (my skies are a bit darker being he lives in a suburb of Pittsburgh), I took the opportunity to run some avi's with the 127 mm.  Here is what I captured.  The 4th image was shot in monochrome, and seems to have the most detail.

As you can see on the last image, I believe the Serpent Storm is resolved as a brighter area just above the dark band, between the band and the north pole.  This is the best I was able to see the storm in my equipment.  I sure wish i was able to photograph it using the dob, even to get a couple of frames.  Seeing was very good.  The moon was rising, so it pretty much ruined the sky for looking for dimmer objects.  The visual Saturn view however was well worth the time spent on it.

Saturn 5/20/11

Had a nice warm, clear night tonight, so I decided to play with this camera a little and figure out the optimum settings.  Took a few pictures that I thought were worthwhile.  One of the images, I ran the gain up and lowered the shutter speed to 1/5 second and was able to capture 4 of Saturn's moons...The 5th is touching the ring, so it really cant be seen in this image.  All photos are shown actual upload size.  (clicking on the images will not be resized).  Some images were enlarged in Registax.  All images were taken with the 127mm.  Also, I used the IR blocking filter on all of the images.

From left to right, the moons are Titan, Tethys then Saturn, on the other side, Dione and Rhea is the outermost on the right.

This image is a mosaic, as I had to severely over-expose the planet in order to get all 4 moons.  The image was taken at 0305 UTC.

Some of the better images taken tonight are here:

 This is probably the best image as far as showing the Cassini Division.

This is my favorite of the evening. 

  

If I can stay up long enough, I'm going to try to take a couple lunar photos tonight too.  They'll be posted in the morning.

Saturn 5-18

  After another weeks worth of rain, we had a somewhat clear night.  Transparency was about a 3.  Seeing was about 5.  Took some pictures of Saturn using the 127mm.  Although I'm not getting any more detail as I have been, this time I was able to capture Titan in the same frame.  Here's what I got this evening.  This photo clearly shows Titan in this slightly overexposed image.

   Here is a slightly resized image of the one below.   1500 frames stacked.  

original size

This small image above is probably the nicest image of the evening, it consists of 1500 stacked frames.

500 stack, resized.

All in all, the images tonight werent too bad considering poor transparency and high humidity.

More May 11 Images

Because it was so late when I got done imaging on May 11 with the new webcam, I had to wait until the next day or 2 to process and post additional images that I have taken that evening. Because we are in the middle of a thunderstorm right now, I thought this would be a good time to post additional pictures that I had taken on May 11. We'll start with this image of the "North Pole". The South shows a small portion of Mare Frigoris, just above and centered is the poorly defined crater W. Bond. The well defined crater left center is Anaxagoras, and above that and almost centered is, I believe Scoresby.


Next I took a full moon mosaic.  Although I feel like I've taken better quality mosaics before, I'll post this one anyway, as a sample image that was taken without the barlow.  All of the other images were taken with the 2X barlow.

Sorry, a little got chopped off the top, I let the avi get too close to the top edge.

The next image is a mosaic in high resolution of the bottom 1/3 of the moon.  This was a mosaic of I believe 9 images:

In addition to these lunar images, I also took 2 more of Saturn, of which are here:

These images are raw, after stacking and after wavelet sharpening, but are uncropped.  The one on the right used a little bit of camera zoom when it was taken.  Keep in mind also, that these were shot through thin cloud cover.  Transparency was not very good when all of these photos were taken.  I was using the homemade 127mm, X 700 mm fl refractor.