114mm Reflector and 70mm Refractor Saturn

I got so used to using the 127mm refractor, I had forgotten the difference between it and the other 2 scopes.

I took a few avi's using each of the 2 scopes.  I normally wouldnt post images like this, but I thought I'd put em up just as a comparison.

The first is from the reflector.  I just could not get good focus.  I checked and made some slight adjustments to the collimation, and star testing showed it to be pretty close.  I did make some small adjustments however.  Anyway, here is the sample image from the reflector:  As you can see, the focus is terrible.  Some of this could be in the clock drive.  By looking at this image, I am thinking that much of the blur came from the clock drive.  You can see blur below the image.

Star testing does show a decent pinpoint in focus, and equal appearance inward and outward focus.

This is from the 70mm refractor.  Because of the lower amount of light captured with these telescopes, I had to run up the gain in the cameras to get an image, and I did not take a flat to get rid of the diagonal lines.  I am seeing the dark northern band and maybe the Cassini, but its difficult to tell, as the diagonal lines produced from the camera makes it hard to tell if I actually resolved it or not.  Seeing appeared to be pretty good, as the stars were quite steady, and the sky seemed reasonably transparent tonight.  So anyway, here is a comparison using the smaller scopes.  There are a number of photos already on here to compare to the 127mm.

AstroLinux DVD & Saturn

I downloaded AstroLinux the other day.  It is a Fedora based live DVD.  Being I am a longtime linux user, I thought I would give it a try.  I do not typically use linux on the laptops because it doesnt play nice with the wireless in the laptops.

Anyway, being this is a live cd (It runs directly off of the DVD), I thought I would give the software a try.  I was shocked that the software saw the camera, as that is another area that in the past, linux does not play nice with.  After playing with it a little here in the house, I thought the next clear night, I would give it a try.

We had partly cloudy skies at sundown, so I thought I would try shooting between the clouds.  The software that is included takes a series of snapshots instead of an AVI, which is no problem.  I couldnt figure out quickly how to use the stacker on the CD, so I imported the captured images over to this windows desktop for processing.  I will play with the linux software more and will eventually figure out how to use the software.

I processed 2 series of snapshots.  Keep in mind, I was shooting between clouds and was in a hurry, so the focus wasnt perfect, but its close.  I will say, this software looks very promising.

Here are the images:

 

  

 captured in Linux

This was a test, running AstroLinux DVD.  Each images is a composite of 100 frames stacked in Registax.

Now on a different subject, notice the facebook app on the side of the page.  I created a Facebook fan page,  and for those who use Facebook, you are invited to "Like" the page, and once you do, you're welcome to post some of your images for all to see.  I'm hoping to see the fan page grow, so if you're a Facebook user, feel free to click the "Like button.  See you there!

Also, stay tuned to this blog page, I am working on an RSS feed from Facebook to a seperate page in this blog.  Any images or text posted in the fan page will eventually be posted in a "Friends" page here on this blog site. 

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.

Quickcam 4000 First Light

Well, it came today from ebay.  Picked up the quickcam 4000, removed the lens and took it outside to have a look at the moon.  The images were so sharp and detailed, once I had figured out all of the settings, and there are a lot more than what I was used to with the newer cameras.  What is nice is that you can adjust the shutter speed independent of the frame rate.  I'm beginning to understand why the older cameras were so popular.

This camera is a CCD, whereas all of my other ones are cmos.  I'm going to have to get another one of these, for sure!  I want to do the lx mod on one of them if I can get a 2nd one.  This camera makes an incredible planetary and lunar cam.  Here are a few of the images I have taken with it.:

Appenine Mts

Clavius

Plato and the Alpine Valley

The Straight Wall

As you can see, the detail is so much better with this camera, I was amazed at what I was seeing on the screen!

While I was at it, I thought I'd shoot a video of Saturn, being the moon pics were so detailed, so here's what I got:
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Ok, now for the complete story.  The sky was filled with thin clouds, transparency was not very good.  Seeing appeared good to average.  I took the saturn image too dark, and had to boost the light level to stack it.  It is not as good as it could be.  The camera will take some getting used to before I get everything correct.  Even though the conditions werent too good, this is one of my best images of Saturn so far.