2nd Baffle Added. Preparing for Upcoming Lunar Pictures

The scope is starting to perform like I would expect now.  I added a 2nd baffle and fixed the problem with the first one, being too small and choking off the aperture.  Because the session where I captured the shadow transit was a poor test being the conditions were so bad, I couldnt resist trying it out last night (8/30/2011).

I took a couple with the planet low - about 20 degrees and got something like this:

I was rather impressed with the images, so around 1AM I went back out.  Dew was just starting to form, and I did not have the dew heater on the scope, and not enough time really to warm things up, but I took some pictures anyway.  Things werent too bad however, because these are what I was able to capture:

The last 2 images, the dew was really beginning to interfere with things.  The 2nd one came out quite sharp, the large red oval in the NEB is quite sharp and pretty well defined.

There are no moons visible in these photos, they were all too far away.  The next shadow transit will be Friday night/Saturday morning, when Io's shadow will transit, and you can bet I'll be outside with the scope and camera.  It will be at a favorable time - 2:30AM local time, so if the sky is clear, I should have some good images to post.

I am looking forward to what this will do with the moon now that  I was able to increase the resolution substantially.  If Jupiter is any test, I should be seeing some rather small craterlets that I havent been able to see before.

Shadow Transit of Europa

Since I was never able to capture a shadow transit as of yet, I happened to notice that one was going to happen around 4:30 local time, so I got up to try to capture the event.  When I went out with the scope and saw a heavy haze of thin cloud cover, I wasnt sure I would capture it.  The images of Jupiter arent real good - some are better than others, but I was able to capture both the moon and the shadow it projected on the planet's surface.

I am going to include some of the better images.  Remember, I'm shooting thru poorly transparent sky - about a 2/10.  The first image is a map of the system.

Here I labelled the major features.  The shadow is from Europa, so you can see, the sun is shining on the planet from the left.  The shadow follows the Great Red Spot and is to the left of it.






The following images show various images I've taken, again with emphasis on the shadow of Europa on the disk.

The last image appears to have a white spot between the redspot and the shadow.  I dont believe there is an actual formation, but an illusion caused by the shape of the small white area between the red spot and the shadow.  The shadow is actually traveling faster than the planet is spinning and will most likely overtake the GRS.

I would also comment that it's too bad actually that the clouds had moved in, the sky was nice and transparent when I went to bed, but I knew they were coming.  It was a crap shoot really, and I wasnt sure I would be able to get anything, but I got up anyway and was somewhat surprised as to what I got.

I also added a 2nd baffle in the scope, and in doing so, I noticed that the one I had, the hole in the center was too small, I had effectively stopped down the thing to about 90mm.  Of course I had fixed that when I found it.  I was hoping for better skies so I could test these changes.  Considering the amount of detail I did capture, I'm sure it is an improvement, but I wont know for sure until we get a clear night.

Rethinking My Image Processing

Now that I'm getting a bit more detail, I've been playing with different settings in Registax as well as doing a little work on them in Photoshop.  I think I came up with a nice image with a lot of detail, and have balanced sharpness and noise.

This image was wavelet and color balanced in Registax.  Then ran it thru photoshop and rotated it.  Then I adjusted the brightness along the edges to give it a more uniform brightness across the globe without overdo'ing it.  Applied a little motion sharpness, then a little unsharp mask to come up with this final image.




I ended up taking a LOT of AVI's this morning.  Seeing appeared a lot better than yesterday's images.  Transparency was quite good, although every so often a thin cloud came by, but it was extremely thin, and noticed the brightness changing mostly on wxastrocap's histogram readings.








Here are a few more images I took last night, although I didnt go thru all the steps in processing...

Nice clear shot showing some white spots on the EZ

Taken using the green filter.

Jupiter, Io and Europa in that order

OK Shot showing the GRS.

One more thing.  I am seeing a difference between the 2 Quickcam 4000's.  The last picture was taken with the worse of the 2.  The round artifacts on this camera arent near as bad on the better one.  Trouble is, I'm not sure which is which.  I will have to take one apart to see which has the Sony and which has the Sharp CCD.  I can tell the 2 cameras apart, but I dont know which is the Sony.

The images taken with the green filter sure shows the detail, but they do have to be shot in monochrome, which makes for a less pleasing image.

Best Jupiter Yet 8/26/2011

It seems the baffling made a substantial difference.  The wee hours of 8/26 had very clear skies, but steadiness wasnt very good.  Nevertheless, I got probably the best Jupiter pictures to date.  I have photographed during better conditions, but the images I got on this evening are far superior, and I can only imagine what I'll get with better seeing conditions.

As you can see, the oval BA is resolved.  I can also make out some color in the center, and a grayish border is also there.  The color isnt perfect, because I also noticed an increase color fringe due to the fast 2 element objective.  Where I only had blue color fringe, I now have some red starting to appear as well, and it is becoming more difficult to eliminate it.  This is why the planet has a greenish hue.

If you can ignore the hue, you will see 2 additional, separate northern belts are resolved and appear somewhat busy.  The Equatorial zone is showing more detail now.  I'm not sure whats up with the southern belt where the BA is located, usually these belts are somewhat straight, but in this image it is very crooked.

Overall, I am quite pleased considering the seeing appeared to be about 3/10.  The planet was expanding and contracting wildly as I was taking the AVI's.

Here is a monochrome image taken from a different AVI, which was shot in monochrome.  The amount of detail, especially in the equatorial zone is even greater, with some additional detail in the north polar region.  Notice the white spots near the north pole.  Again the Oval BA is well resolved in the southern region.

This is one of the first images taken during this session.  Again, a lot of detail.  There appears to be a bit more detail here in the equatorial zone in this color image than in the first image, however although the Oval BA is resolved, it is not as sharp in this image.



The only real difference between these images and previous images is the addition of that one baffle in the optical tube.  It was suggested that a couple more would be optimal for this scope, and that might very well be true, but with the addition of only 1, it sure seemed to make quite an improvement.

Added baffles. Sample Jupiter Images

I added a baffle yesterday and repainted the inside of the tube with a little better quality flat black.  It appears to have made a difference.  Tonights conditions werent terrific, but it seems like the contrast has been enhanced some.  Transparency was bad, but seeing appeared to be ok, as it wasnt jumping around much.  The rising moon was a different story however, but it was low and I'm not going to post any images of the moon, as I dont feel it was a good test.

 This one appears to have a decent amount of detail.  Beginning to see some activity in the EZ.  There is a dark red spot in the SEB, just ahead of the GRS, which in this image is just over the horizon.  CM I: 155 II: 82  III: 15

 The moons which may be visible in this image (they were when I processed) are Europa on the left and Io and Ganymede on the right.

 This image is showing some activity in the STrZ rising.  I: 165 II: 93 III: 25.5  The same 3 moons may be visible in this image as well.

Here is a monochrome image.  I believe when we get better conditions, the amount of detail will improve.

This image and the next were taken using Sharpcap on my Windows 7 laptop.  These were taken about 30 minutes later, and show
 CM I: 196 II: 123 III: 56

Jupiter & Moon Frames from 8/17/11

Took a few pictures on the 17th also, unfortunately the seeing hasnt been real good as of late, but I got a couple good ones...

First the Jupiter images.

Nothing spectacular, but you can see the GRS setting on the right.

Now for some moon segments

Rupes Altai

This is a nice one of Rupes Altai with the sun hitting it from the other direction.  Instead of it being bright, it is now a shadow.

 Here is Mare Nectarus with the sun in the opposite direction of all of my previous pictures of this area.